Options Max Pain

Weekly, monthly, and quarterly options max-pain pins for BTC, ETH, and SOL — where option positioning wants price to close.

What max pain is

For any option expiry, max pain is the price at which the total value of all outstanding options is lowest — the level where option buyers collectively lose the most and writers lose the least. Because dealer hedging flows tend to compress price toward heavily-sold strikes as expiry approaches, max pain is a widely watched “pin” candidate, especially into the Friday expiry window.

What Athena publishes

• Assets: BTC, ETH, and SOL, computed from Deribit options open interest (the deepest crypto options venue), with spot reference from Binance.
• Expiries: the front weekly, monthly, and quarterly max-pain strike per asset, shown against current spot. Fronts roll automatically after the Friday 08:00 UTC settlement. (SOL lists no monthlies on Deribit, so its monthly slot is empty by design.)
• Refresh: every 4 hours.

How to read it

• Distance matters. Spot pinned near max pain into a Friday is unremarkable; spot several percent away late in the week sets up the classic “gravity” debate — watch whether price drifts toward the pin as theta burns.
• Weekly drives, monthly/quarterly contextualize. The weekly expiry carries the most immediate hedging flow; the larger expiries mark bigger structural magnets that matter as their dates approach.
• Confluence beats any single level. The Telegram 🧲 Magnet Board scores exactly this — whether the options pin, the liquidation skew, the heaviest liquidation cluster, and the biggest order-book wall point the same way.