Learn · Crypto

Deribit options, explained.

Reading time · 6 min

Most BTC and ETH options open interest still sits on Deribit. The chain columns look familiar — strike, OI, IV, bid/ask — but margin is in crypto, expiries roll daily, and the book never closes. If you've only traded NIFTY weeklies, those three differences will bite you first.

What Deribit is

Deribit is a crypto derivatives exchange (Amsterdam, 2016). Options are European-style: exercise only at expiry. Futures and perps share the same account. For a side-by-side with Indian indices, see BTC vs index options.

Contract types — inverse BTC vs linear ETH

BTC options

Inverse (coin-margined). Premium, margin and settlement P&L are in BTC. A move in BTC changes both your option value and the fiat value of your margin at the same time.

ETH options

Linear USDC-margined. P&L in stablecoin — closer to cash-settled INR thinking, though still an offshore book.

Sizing trap: +0.05 BTC profit is not a fixed rupee amount until you mark BTC/INR. If you size in notional INR on NIFTY, Deribit won't convert that for you.

Expiry schedule

Every contract expires at 08:00 UTC (13:30 IST). Three cycles run at once:

  • Daily — every calendar day. Theta compresses into 24 hours.
  • Weekly — Fridays. Usually the heaviest OI and the expiry day people actually watch.
  • Monthly — last Friday of the month. Often the widest strike list.

Dates: Deribit expiry calendar. NIFTY Thursday mechanics: option expiry mechanics.

Chain fields worth reading

  • Open interest — same idea as NIFTY: where writers sit. We sum OI across all expiries on public pages, not one weekly slice.
  • Mark price (mp) — Deribit's fair value; used for P&L and liquidations. On illiquid strikes, prefer this over last trade.
  • Mark IV (mark_iv) — exchange-published IV. Our volatility and IV term structure pages plot it directly.
  • Bid / ask — spreads widen fast away from ATM. The spread map shows what's actually tradable.

Settlement

ITM options settle against Deribit's index price at 08:00 UTC — not a single spot tick from your charting app. OTM options expire worthless. Because dailies exist, you can have meaningful expiry flow every morning, not just on Fridays.

Where our data comes from

We snapshot Deribit all-expiry chains every few seconds into chain_history.db. That's the source for BTC tools, daily digest, and replay. Liquidations on the heatmap are forced closes from Deribit, OKX and Bybit — we don't have a reliable public Binance liq feed from this VPS.

Other venues

  • Binance options — USDT-margined, different naming. Compared on venues where we have live feeds.
  • Delta India — INR crypto options for Indian residents; separate margin and regulatory frame from offshore Deribit.

Mistakes we see often

Holding a daily like a weekly

Theta on a Deribit daily is steep. A NIFTY weekly held three days is not comparable to a BTC daily held 12 hours past when you should have rolled.

Forgetting coin margin

Up in BTC terms while BTC sells off against INR can still hurt when you convert. Size the underlying exposure, not just the option leg.

Last traded price on dead strikes

Stale prints on wide markets mess up DIY IV or payoff math. Use mark price and exchange IV.

FAQ

What is Deribit?

Crypto derivatives exchange, dominant for BTC/ETH options OI. European-style, 24/7.

When do options expire?

08:00 UTC — daily, weekly (Fridays), monthly (last Friday).

BTC margined in BTC or dollars?

BTC options: inverse (BTC). ETH options: USDC linear.

What is mark_iv?

Deribit's published IV per strike. We use it as-is on public IV pages — no back-solve from premium.

How is this different from NIFTY?

24/7, crypto margin, daily expiries, offshore. Same column names; different risk.

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