Someone paid $103K for bitcoin to stop at one price: 95,000
On 7 October at 02:45 UTC someone paid about $103K in one Deribit block for a butterfly on 250 bitcoin: bought calls at 90,000 and 100,000 and sold twice as many calls at 95,000.
It pays up to $1.25M, twelve times its price, but only if bitcoin settles near 95,000 on 30 October. That morning it traded at 83,870.
Thirty-nine minutes before the trade bitcoin was at the bottom of a night drop. And the 70,000 call seller from our earlier investigation already sits on the same expiry: they cannot both get paid.
- Source: our hourly archive of every Deribit trade with block number and aggressor side, since 11 June 2026
- Check: the archive's 7 October volume on the three strikes matches the exchange (271.3 · 748.8 · 494.1 against 494.6). Open interest: daily Deribit chain snapshots and an exchange snapshot at 15:20 UTC
- Data frozen 07.10.2026, 15:20 UTC
Bought 250 bitcoin butterflies expiring 30 October in one block. Wins only if the price settles between 90,411 and 99,589.
The 02:45 block
At 02:45:46 UTC one three-leg trade on the 30 October expiry went through on Deribit. Bought: 250 bitcoin calls at 90,000 and 250 calls at 100,000. Sold: 500 calls at 95,000.
The exchange itself labelled it as a ready-made butterfly: the three legs went through as one package, not as three separate trades. The buyer paid 1.225 BTC, about $103K with bitcoin at 83,870.
So each of the 250 butterflies cost him $411.
What it bets on
A butterfly pays in one corridor only. If bitcoin settles at exactly 95,000 on 30 October, each of the 250 butterflies pays $5,000, $1.25M in total.
The further from 95,000, the less. Below 90,411 or above 99,589 the payout is less than the cost, and below 90,000 or above 100,000 it is zero.
So the buyer needs bitcoin to rise about 8% in three weeks and stop near 95,000, 13% above the trade price. The most he can lose is the $103K already paid.
The night
At 01:45 UTC the bitcoin index on Deribit stood at 85,323. At 02:06 it was at 83,564: down 2.1% in 21 minutes.
In those same minutes Hyperliquid was force-closing the longs of two wallets from our earlier investigations.
The butterfly was bought at 02:45, when bitcoin had bounced to 83,870. So the bet on 95,000 was not placed into a rally but 39 minutes after the bottom of the drop.
A new position
The butterfly could have been the closing of an old position. Open interest tells the two apart: we compared the 01:30 UTC snapshot, before the trade, with the one at 15:20.
On the 100,000 strike it grew by 250 contracts and on 95,000 by 500: exactly as in the butterfly. On 90,000 by 278.
So this is a new position. Later that day, at 13:53, one more block went through on the same strikes: 100 calls at 90,000 bought, 225 calls at 95,000 sold.
Lines: BTC-30OCT26 open interest from daily Deribit snapshots and an exchange snapshot on 07.10 at 15:20 UTC, contracts.
The same expiry
Our readers already know the 30 October expiry. On 25 September the 70,000 call seller rolled 4,709 calls into it, and his position only earns below 85,100.
On 24 September 4,000 calls at 90,000 on the same expiry were bought for $6.9M. On 30 September and 1 October six blocks of 1,000 calls at 90,000 were sold at 0.0142-0.0155 BTC, cheaper than the same lots were bought on 24 September, and open interest on the strike fell from 20,421 to 14,112.
Now 90,000 is being bought again, as the lower leg of the butterfly. So on 30 October the 70,000 call seller and the butterfly buyer cannot both make money: the first needs below 85,100, the second above 90,411.
Blue line: bitcoin from daily Deribit snapshots. Dashes to 30 October: the 70,000 call seller's line, the butterfly's lower break-even, its peak payout.
The previous butterfly
On 28 August our registry already had a big bitcoin butterfly: 100 calls at 84,000 and 100 at 96,000 bought, 200 calls at 90,000 sold, expiring 25 September. Bitcoin was at 79,841 then.
On 25 September bitcoin settled at 83,931: up 5.1%, but nowhere near 90,000. That butterfly closed $73K down.
The new one is 2.5 times bigger and sits 5,000 higher. So the task is the same: back then bitcoin was 12.7% short of the centre, now it is 13.3% short.
The buyer has three weeks. At the exchange mark at 15:20 UTC on 7 October the butterfly is worth about $81K, $22K less than he paid: bitcoin slipped to 83,070 during the day. Settlement on 30 October at 08:00 UTC. We will come back to this bet before the settlement and after it.
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Evidence and limits
Trade: block BLOCK-302023, 07.10.2026 02:45:46 UTC, exchange package BTC-CBUT-30OCT26-90000_95000_100000. Legs: 250 × BTC-30OCT26-90000-C at 0.0118, sold 500 × BTC-30OCT26-95000-C at 0.0047, 250 × BTC-30OCT26-100000-C at 0.0025 BTC; index 83,870.34.
Exchange check: archive volume for 7 October on the three instruments 271.3 / 748.8 / 494.1 contracts against 271.3 / 748.8 / 494.6 on the exchange (the last minutes are not yet written). Same blocks.
Exact accounting: 250 × 0.0118 + 250 × 0.0025 - 500 × 0.0047 = 1.225 BTC = $102,741 at the trade index, before exchange fees. Maximum 250 × $5,000 = $1,250,000. Winning zone 90,411-99,589.
Open interest: chain snapshot on 07.10 at 01:30 UTC (14,725.5 / 24,369.0 / 13,692.3) and the exchange at 15:20 UTC (15,003.5 / 24,869.3 / 13,942.6). The change on 90,000 includes the day's second block, BLOCK-302073 at 13:53.
What we do not know: the exchange does not show who the buyer is. We do not link him to the 70,000 call seller, to the 24 September buyer of 90,000 calls, or to any Hyperliquid wallet. The day's second block may belong to someone else.
Previous butterfly: case #981 of our structures registry (28.08.2026), result at the 25.09.2026 settlement.
A decision journal, not investment advice. Reconstructed from public exchange records.