Calls and puts: buyer rights and seller obligations
A call option gives its buyer the right to buy Bitcoin at an agreed strike price. A put option gives its buyer the right to sell at that strike. The buyer pays a premium for the right; the seller receives the premium and takes on the corresponding obligation. With cash settlement, money changes hands instead of Bitcoin being delivered.
Synthetic example — not live data. A buyer pays $3,000 for a call on 1 BTC with a $100,000 strike. If the settlement price is $110,000, the call pays $10,000 before fees. Its seller owes that $10,000 despite receiving only $3,000. A put with the same strike instead pays $10,000 if the settlement price is $90,000.
Strike, expiry and premium
The strike is the contract's reference price, not the price paid for the option. Expiry is when the right ends and settlement is determined. The premium is the option's purchase price. Check the contract multiplier before turning a quote into a total cost.
Synthetic example — not live data. A $100,000-strike call expiring on 30 October at 08:00 UTC costs a $3,000 premium per BTC. Exposure to 0.1 BTC costs $300 before fees. The premium does not change the $100,000 strike.
Intrinsic value versus time value
Intrinsic value is the positive exercise value at the relevant underlying reference price: max(price − strike, 0) for a call, max(strike − price, 0) for a put. The premium above intrinsic is commonly called time value, reflecting the remaining opportunity before expiry. European valuation also depends on the forward and discounting; use a consistent price and currency basis.
Synthetic example — not live data. At a $105,000 reference price and $100,000 strike, a $7,000 call premium contains $5,000 intrinsic and $2,000 time value on a simple zero-rate USD basis. At expiry no time value remains. A call below its strike or a put above its strike is out of the money, with zero intrinsic value.
Payoff at expiry is different from profit
For exposure to 1 BTC on a linear cash-settled contract, let S be the settlement price, K the strike and P the premium, all on the same dollar basis. A long call's payoff is max(S − K, 0); profit is max(S − K, 0) − P. A long put's payoff is max(K − S, 0); profit is max(K − S, 0) − P. Multiply by the BTC exposure and subtract fees for a position result.
Synthetic example — not live data. Each long option below has a $100,000 strike, a $3,000 premium and exposure to 1 BTC. Fees are excluded.
| BTC settlement price | Call payoff | Call profit | Put payoff | Put profit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $90,000 | $0 | −$3,000 | $10,000 | +$7,000 |
| $100,000 | $0 | −$3,000 | $0 | −$3,000 |
| $110,000 | $10,000 | +$7,000 | $0 | −$3,000 |
The example call breaks even at $103,000 and the put at $97,000 at expiry, before fees. Being in the money does not guarantee a profit. Try other inputs in the options profit calculator. Selling before expiry depends on the available option price, not just the eventual payoff.
The seller's expiry profit is premium received minus payoff owed, before fees. Synthetic example — not live data. Selling that call for $3,000 gives a $7,000 loss at $110,000 settlement and a $27,000 loss at $130,000. A fully paid standalone buyer's option loss is limited to premium, before fees; a seller can lose more and face margin calls or liquidation. An uncovered short call has no fixed upper loss limit. A short put's loss can be large as Bitcoin approaches zero.
European style and cash settlement
The covered Bybit and Binance options use European-style exercise: exercise occurs at expiry, though a position can be traded earlier if liquidity permits. Cash settlement pays intrinsic value in the contract's settlement currency rather than delivering BTC. An index average before expiry determines settlement, rather than necessarily the last trade. See what happens when Bitcoin options expire.
Synthetic example — not live data. A call on 0.1 BTC with strike $100,000 and settlement index $110,000 pays 0.1 × ($110,000 − $100,000) = $1,000 in the applicable stablecoin units before fees, assuming dollar parity. No 0.1 BTC is delivered.
Coin-quoted premiums: check the currency
Some crypto options quote and settle in BTC or ETH. A coin premium changes dollar value as the coin price changes. The public Bybit and Binance products covered here settle in stablecoin; coin units in our open interest and volume measure underlying exposure, not premium currency. Deribit is not covered by our public data; its inverse-option documentation below is a coin-quoting reference only.
Synthetic example — not live data. A premium of 0.03 BTC per 1 BTC exposure is worth $3,000 when BTC is $100,000. Exposure to 0.1 BTC costs 0.003 BTC, worth $300 then. For an inverse call, $10,000 intrinsic at a $110,000 delivery price corresponds to 10,000 / 110,000 = 0.090909 BTC per 1 BTC exposure before fees. After the 0.03 BTC premium, profit is 0.060909 BTC. Its later dollar value uses the later conversion price; the fixed-dollar break-even example above cannot be used unchanged for a coin premium.
Reading the live at-the-money call and put
The box reads the cached BTC options chain for the first public venue and its nearest fresh expiry. It chooses the strike nearest the quoted expiry forward, with the lower strike winning a tie. A forward is an expiry-specific reference, not necessarily today's spot price or a forecast. Each leg has its own observation time. Missing quotes stay Unavailable; mark IV and delta are not premiums.
Synthetic example — not live data. With a $101,000 forward and $100,000 and $105,000 strikes, $100,000 is ATM. A 50% mark IV is an annualised volatility input, not a 50% premium or return. Deltas of +0.52 for a call and −0.48 for a put describe local forward sensitivities, not guaranteed probabilities. Continue with option greeks and implied volatility.
Open interest and volume do not reveal direction
Open interest counts outstanding exposure; volume measures trading during a period. Each contract has a buyer and seller. Calls can be sold, puts can hedge a holding, and either can be a spread leg. These totals do not identify net bullish or bearish exposure.
Synthetic example — not live data. Call OI of 100 BTC and put OI of 60 BTC give a put/call ratio of 0.60. They do not mean 100 BTC of bullish buyers or a 60% chance of a fall. Likewise, 20 BTC of call volume may include closing trades and covered-call sellers. Read the put/call ratio guide and max pain for the limits of expiry positioning measures.
Checked against the exchanges' own documentation on 22 October 2026: Bybit: introduction to options · Binance: introduction to options · Deribit: inverse options (coin-quoted reference only). Not financial advice.