Bitcoin Options Expiry Meets a 19-Year Bond Yield Spike

Quick answer: Bitcoin is heading into a $15.6 billion quarterly options expiry on Deribit this Friday, September 25, with a call-heavy book that’s betting on higher prices even as the broader macro backdrop turns rougher. BTC reclaimed its 365-day moving average on September 22 after 310 straight days below it — a signal that’s preceded higher prices a year later in every one of the five times it’s happened before, though it’s failed twice, too. At the same time, the 10-year Treasury yield just hit roughly 5.1%, its highest level since 2007, as bond markets price in another Fed rate hike rather than a cut. Bitcoin has pulled back from a September 21 high near $87,000 to the low-to-mid $80,000s. None of these signals guarantees a direction on their own; together, they explain why this week feels more consequential than most.

A Rally That Ran Into a Wall of Bond Yields

Let’s set the scene. Bitcoin spent most of the back half of 2025 and the first eight months of 2026 grinding below its own long-term moving averages after tumbling from October 2025’s record above $126,000. That’s the kind of stretch that tests conviction — the coin that’s supposedly “digital gold” trading like a beaten-down growth stock for the better part of a year.

Then September happened. A short squeeze tore through the derivatives market in the week of September 18, with the CoinDesk-reported break above $84,000 forcing hundreds of millions in bearish bets to cover in a matter of hours. By September 21, Bitcoin had touched roughly $87,000, and spot ETF buyers piled in behind it — more on that below. It was, briefly, the kind of move that gets talked about at dinner tables again.

Except it didn’t hold. By September 23 and 24, Bitcoin had eased back to somewhere between $82,900 and $85,500 depending on the exact hour you checked, according to CoinDesk’s own market data. The culprit wasn’t a crypto-specific event. It was the bond market. The 10-year Treasury yield climbed to around 5.1% this week, a level not seen since 2007, according to reporting from CNBC. The 30-year yield, separately, hit its highest point since 2004. Traders aren’t pricing in the rate cuts that would normally support risk assets like crypto and growth stocks — they’re pricing in the opposite. Markets are now betting on additional Fed rate hikes rather than easing, a genuinely unusual setup for late 2026.

If you’ve been holding Bitcoin through this stretch, that whiplash probably feels familiar. Imagine watching your portfolio print a fresh multi-month high on a Sunday night, then spending the rest of the week watching it drift lower every time a bond auction disappoints. That’s roughly what the past seven days have looked like for anyone tracking both markets at once.

The 365-Day Moving Average Signal, Explained

Here’s the part that’s easy to skim past but genuinely matters if you care about where Bitcoin sits in its longer cycle. On September 22, Bitcoin closed back above its 365-day moving average — essentially, the average closing price over the trailing year — for the first time in 310 days. That average currently sits around $80,900, per CoinDesk’s technical analysis published September 24.

Why does a full-year average matter more than, say, the 50-day or 200-day lines traders usually watch? Because it smooths out an entire cycle’s worth of noise. A shorter average reacts to last month’s headlines. The 365-day line is telling you, in effect, whether the coin is worth more today than the trailing-year trend suggests it “should” be — and it moves slowly enough that crossing it, in either direction, tends to mark genuine regime changes rather than short-term noise.

According to research from Altcoin Pro Research analysts Ryan Horst and Joni Zhuleku, cited in that same CoinDesk piece, this exact setup — Bitcoin regaining its 365-day average after spending 90 or more days below it — has happened five times in Bitcoin’s history. In all five, price was higher twelve months later, with gains ranging from 59% on the low end to more than 1,400% following the 2012 instance. That’s a striking track record, and it’s the kind of data point that tends to get repeated a lot on social media without much of the context around it.

The context matters, though. This same setup has also failed twice: once in July 2018, when Bitcoin dropped roughly 27% in the following months, and again in March 2022, ahead of a nearly 59% decline. A 5-for-7 record isn’t nothing, but it’s not a coin flip you’d bet the mortgage on, either. One of the analysts put it plainly: “This September’s move is encouraging, especially after 310 days below the line, but we want to see it hold. It is a signal, not a guarantee.”

Worth noting, too: Bitcoin’s shorter-term averages already flashed a bullish signal back on September 8, when the 50-day moving average crossed above the 200-day — the pattern traders call a “golden cross.” The 200-day average itself sits near $70,800, meaning Bitcoin’s recent pullback still leaves it comfortably above that longer floor, even with the past few days’ softness.

Why This Week’s Options Expiry Adds a Second Layer of Pressure

Layered on top of all that technical and macro noise is a genuinely large, mechanical event: roughly $15.6 billion in Bitcoin options, spanning about 182,000 contracts, expire on Deribit this Friday, September 25, at 08:00 UTC. Add in the accompanying Ethereum options and the combined notional pushes closer to $18 billion. This is one of Deribit’s largest quarterly settlements of the year, and it removes something like a third of the exchange’s total outstanding Bitcoin options open interest in a single stroke.

The positioning going into it is notably one-sided. The put-to-call ratio sits around 0.69, meaning there are meaningfully more bullish call contracts outstanding than bearish puts. More than half of the roughly $9.4 billion in call notional is currently in the money, while most of the put side is sitting underwater and functionally worthless. That’s a book built by traders who, over the past few months, positioned for Bitcoin to keep climbing rather than retreat.

Options traders and market makers also talk about a “max pain” level — the price at which the largest dollar value of contracts expires worthless, which tends to act as a mild gravitational pull into expiry because of how market makers hedge their own exposure. For this expiry, that level sits around $75,000, well below where Bitcoin is currently trading. It doesn’t mean price is destined to fall there; it’s more of a structural note in the room than a prediction. What tends to matter more is what happens right after settlement: once the dealer hedging flow that’s been pinning price in a range rolls off, short-term volatility often picks back up, sometimes sharply, as the market resets around a new equilibrium without that hedging pressure holding it in place.

Put another way: options expiries like this one don’t usually cause a trend on their own, but they can act like a pressure valve, releasing volatility that was being artificially dampened by dealers hedging their books. If you’ve noticed Bitcoin trading in an oddly tight range over the past week or two, some of that compression may unwind once Friday’s settlement clears.

The ETF Flow Story Sitting Underneath It All

None of this technical and derivatives drama happened in a vacuum. Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw real money move during the same window. After a rough mid-month stretch — $450.4 million in redemptions on September 15 and another $295.9 million on September 16 — flows flipped hard. September 18 brought $433 million back in. September 21 alone saw nearly $1 billion in net inflows, led by BlackRock’s IBIT at $381.4 million, ARK’s ARKB at $289.1 million, and Fidelity’s FBTC at $238.8 million. September 22 added another $714.7 million. Across those three sessions, more than $2.1 billion in fresh capital came back into the space.

We’ve tracked the choppier side of this same ETF story before in our look at Bitcoin’s ETF flow turnaround heading into September, and this week is essentially the next chapter of that pattern — sharp outflows followed by an even sharper reversal, rather than a smooth, steady climb. Total U.S. spot Bitcoin ETF net assets now sit near $110.8 billion, with cumulative net inflows since launch around $56.9 billion.

It’s also worth connecting this to the supply side of the equation. We’ve written separately about Bitcoin exchange reserves sitting near multi-year lows, meaning there’s simply less BTC sitting on exchanges ready to sell at any given moment. When ETF demand spikes into a thinner available supply, price moves tend to be sharper in both directions — which may partly explain why last week’s rally was so fast, and why this week’s pullback has felt uncomfortable by comparison.

Putting the Pieces Together

So where does that leave things heading into the weekend? You’ve got a genuinely rare long-term technical signal with a mostly good historical track record. You’ve got a huge, call-heavy options expiry that could either resolve calmly or kick off a fresh burst of volatility once dealer hedging unwinds. And you’ve got a bond market sending a message that’s directly at odds with the low-rate environment that’s historically been kind to risk assets, including crypto.

Those three forces are pulling in different directions right now, and that tension is exactly why Bitcoin’s chart looks the way it does this week — a strong bounce followed by a stall, rather than a clean breakout in either direction. Total crypto market capitalization sits near $3 trillion, with Bitcoin’s own market cap around $1.7 trillion and dominance elevated near 57%, according to CoinGecko-sourced figures cited in market commentary this week. That dominance level suggests capital hasn’t meaningfully rotated into altcoins during this bounce, which is itself informative — it reads more like cautious repositioning in Bitcoin specifically than the start of a broader risk-on wave. For more on how Bitcoin’s dominance reading fits into the bigger seasonal and cyclical picture, our Q4 2026 market outlook digs into the trends and risks worth watching into year-end.

None of this is a forecast, and it shouldn’t be treated as one. Markets that are this evenly balanced between bullish technicals and bearish macro pressure have a way of surprising people in both directions. What’s useful is understanding the mechanics well enough that Friday’s price action, whichever way it goes, doesn’t feel like it came out of nowhere.

What to Actually Watch This Week

If you want a short checklist rather than a wall of analysis, here’s what matters most over the next several trading sessions: whether Bitcoin holds above that $80,900 365-day average on a weekly closing basis, how the options market behaves in the hours immediately after Friday’s settlement, whether Treasury yields keep climbing or start to stabilize, and whether ETF flows extend their late-September recovery or roll back into outflows. Any one of these moving sharply against the current setup would change the read meaningfully.

This is general market information for educational purposes, not financial or investment advice. Crypto markets are volatile, options expiries and macro data can move prices quickly in either direction, and past patterns — including the 365-day moving average track record discussed above — are not guarantees of future results. Always do your own research and consider your own risk tolerance before making investment decisions.

Key Takeaways

• Bitcoin reclaimed its 365-day moving average (~$80,900) on September 22 after 310 days below it — a signal that’s preceded higher prices a year later in 5 of 5 prior instances, though two similar setups (2018, 2022) later failed.
• A $15.6 billion Deribit options expiry lands Friday, September 25, with a call-heavy book (put/call ratio of 0.69) and a max pain level near $75,000, well below current prices.
• Bitcoin pulled back from a September 21 high near $87,000 to the low-to-mid $80,000s as the 10-year Treasury yield hit roughly 5.1%, its highest since 2007, on rising Fed rate-hike expectations.
• Spot Bitcoin ETFs saw over $2.1 billion in net inflows across September 18, 21, and 22, reversing a rough mid-month stretch of redemptions.
• Bitcoin dominance remains elevated near 57%, suggesting this bounce has stayed concentrated in BTC rather than spreading broadly into altcoins.
• Update (Sept 29, 2026): The expiry cleared quietly. Bitcoin slipped from about $85,200 to roughly $83,800 after settlement and has held near $84,000 since, while the headline options figure turned out to be open interest rather than cash paid out.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does it mean that Bitcoin “reclaimed its 365-day moving average”?

It means Bitcoin’s price closed back above the average of its closing prices over the trailing 365 days, after spending 310 consecutive days below that line. Because it’s such a long-term average, crossing it tends to reflect a genuine shift in the broader trend rather than short-term price noise.

Is a $15.6 billion options expiry actually going to move Bitcoin’s price?

Not necessarily on its own. What often moves is short-term volatility, not direction. Dealers hedge their exposure to outstanding options, and that hedging can dampen price swings leading into expiry. Once the contracts settle and that hedging flow disappears, price can move more freely in whichever direction other forces — macro data, ETF flows, sentiment — are already pushing it.

Why are rising bond yields bad for Bitcoin if Bitcoin isn’t a bond?

Higher yields on safe assets like Treasurys raise the bar for riskier investments to look attractive by comparison, and they often coincide with tighter financial conditions overall. When yields spike on rate-hike expectations rather than strong growth, it tends to pressure risk assets broadly, including both stocks and crypto, even though Bitcoin has no direct mechanical link to bond markets.

Does the 365-day moving average signal guarantee Bitcoin goes higher over the next year?

No. It’s a historical pattern with a 5-for-7 track record across the instances analysts have identified, not a guarantee. The two failures, in 2018 and 2022, both occurred during periods of significant macro stress, which is a useful reminder that no single technical signal operates independently of the broader environment.

What happened to the corporate and institutional buying that drove earlier 2026 rallies?

Corporate treasury buying and ETF accumulation have continued through September, though the pace has been uneven week to week rather than a steady march upward. The mid-month ETF outflows followed by the September 18-22 reversal are a good example of how choppy that demand has been, even as the underlying trend of institutional accumulation has held up over the course of the year.

Sources

This article draws on reporting and data from CoinDesk’s coverage of Bitcoin’s 365-day moving average reclaim, CoinDesk’s reporting on the September 25 Deribit options expiry, Decrypt’s coverage of the same expiry, and CNBC’s reporting on the 10-year Treasury yield hitting its highest level since 2007, along with ETF flow data attributed to Farside Investors and SoSoValue as cited in market reporting published between September 21 and 24, 2026.