Options Data

Total Open Interest

Notional value of all outstanding options positions.

What the term means

Total Open Interest is the combined notional dollar value of every outstanding call and put on a company’s stock across all strikes and expirations. It captures the full size of the options casino that surrounds the ticker.

(Total call OI in shares + Total put OI in shares) × 100 × Current stock price

Real-time platforms (Bloomberg, OptionMetrics, Unusual Whales, etc.) publish the number as a single USD figure (for example, $60.6 billion, $3.1 billion, $214 million). Higher totals mean deeper liquidity, tighter pricing, and more explosive gamma potential.

Why the term matters for Bitcoin treasury companies

Depth of the options casino

$20 billion+ Total Open Interest creates a self-sustaining ecosystem of market makers, vol funds, structured-product desks, and retail flow. Sub-$1–2 billion OI leaves a ghost town with wide spreads, stale pricing, and no gamma participation.

Gamma scale dictates move scale

Every $1 billion of OI equates to roughly $1 billion of potential dealer hedging flow. A treasury with $60 billion in OI can gap 30–100% in a session purely from dealers chasing delta. Smaller OI names struggle to move 10–20% without massive BTC help.

Liquidity moat and institutional acceptance

Prime brokers only deploy serious capital when OI clears ~$10 billion. Crossing that threshold unlocks weekly expirations, block-trade facilities, and round-the-clock risk systems. Below $5 billion, treasuries remain stuck in retail-only purgatory.

Hedging and view-expression superpower

Deep OI lets institutions run basis trades, collars, covered-call overlays, and vol-harvest strategies at scale. Without it, hedging a $50 million equity position incurs 5–10% slippage—functionally impossible for professional desks.

Premium sustainability engine

Elevated Total OI keeps implied volatility firm and gamma alive, supporting 2–4× mNAV multiples even when BTC chops sideways. Low OI lets IV collapse, gamma die, and premiums leak lower fast.

Capital-raising lubricant

Management times offerings for peak OI. When the options market is humming, the gamma blanket absorbs new supply and offerings price at premiums. Thin OI environments make raises dilutive and painful.

Tiering and survivorship

Only a handful of treasuries ever reach $20 billion+ Total OI (historically MSTR, occasionally Metaplanet or Strive). Hitting that mark creates a permanent moat: more liquidity → more OI → more gamma → higher sustainable multiples.

Macro narrative anchor

Media headlines like “$60 billion options market built on a single Bitcoin treasury stock” prove these equities have deeper derivatives ecosystems than many S&P 500 names, cementing them as global macro instruments.

Bottom line

Total Open Interest is the treasury sector’s liquidity depth gauge. $20 billion+ marks a Tier-1 gamma monster, $5–20 billion a credible mid-tier, and below $5 billion an illiquid afterthought. High OI doesn’t just reflect interest—it creates the detached price action that defines winners.

How BitcoinQuant incorporates it

We ingest consolidated options feeds—Source: Yahoo Finance options. Contracts × 100 × share price, summed across expiries. Total OI powers the options dashboard, gamma alerts, capital-raising readiness monitors, and the tiering badges that highlight which treasuries have crossed the $5 billion and $20 billion liquidity lines.