What if a record options expiry pins Bitcoin, then breaks it?
Max-pain pinning then a post-expiry breakdown is a hedge-unwind, not new information: once option OI expires the stabilizing dealer bid vanishes and BTC gaps, dragging MSTR ~-4%. Similar in mechanism to quarterly equity-index expiries that pin then release. The skeptic's note — the directional break only sticks if it coincides with weak spot demand; absent that, the post-expiry air-pocket round-trips within days.
Every number ships with its receipt — the odds, the range, the precedents, and a public grade at Reality Check. The statistical machinery that produces it is proprietary.
The butterfly cascade
How this trigger trickles across markets, left → right — the root shock, its first‑order moves, then the ripple effects. Drag any node; tap a market for its real price history.
Resolution timeline — how this probability is moving
Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 0–6 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a mixed shock. A record quarterly options expiry pins Bitcoin then unleashes a violent post-expiry breakdown as hedges unwind. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Bitcoin ▼ · Crypto confidence ▼ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.