Saturday morning: when week-ahead options were at their cheapest
Crypto trades every day, but options aren't priced the same every day. Going into a weekend there are fewer hours of real risk ahead, so the price of volatility drifts down into Saturday and jumps back on Sunday evening. We measured how big that move is, which expiries it lives in and when it bottoms.
Short version: for options about a week out the move is large, and the low comes on Saturday morning. For options three months out it's small, but on a big order it still pays for the habit of buying on Saturday.
What we measured
13 weekends of hourly implied volatility across the whole ETH and BTC option chain, March to June 2026, split by time to expiry: 1-4 days, 4-11, 11-36 and 36-100. Plus 104 weekends of Deribit's 30 day volatility index (DVOL), May 2024 to May 2026.
Every hour is compared with the average of its own week. That way a calm week and a stormy one weigh the same, and what shows up is the shape of the week rather than the general level of fear.
The swing shrinks with time to expiry
| time to expiry | ETH | BTC |
|---|---|---|
| 1-4 days | 35.2% | 37.0% |
| 4-11 days | 16.2% | 16.8% |
| 11-36 days | 6.6% | 5.5% |
| 36-100 days | 3.7% | 2.9% |
| DVOL index, 2 years | 3.4% | 3.4% |
The swing here is the gap between the most expensive and the cheapest hour of the week relative to the average. It's more mechanics than mood: the shorter the option, the bigger the share of its life that falls on dead weekend hours, and the harder the market discounts those hours.
What it's worth in money
On three month options the swing is small, about 4% of the volatility price. But orders can be big. On 25 September 2026, for 80 December ETH calls at the 3,200 strike (about $10,000), the gap between the Monday high and the end of week low came to roughly $700. Same position, just a different day.
On week-ahead options the gap is several times bigger, which is why the insurance in our Pendulum and in our public ETH plan is bought on Saturday morning.
- When the low comes
- The exact windows for each expiry and asset: the hour of the low and the high for 1-4, 4-11, 11-36 and 36-100 days, ETH and BTC separately, and how stable each window is.
- The surprise: Friday evening
- Can you earn on it by selling: the result of selling a short straddle from Friday to Saturday over 13 weekends: win rate, average result and the worst week.
- How we use it: the execution rule for all our option buys and sells, and where it doesn't apply.
What this study can't tell you
- The full option chain covers only 13 weekends: timing and swing by expiry are descriptive. Statistical power exists only on the two year index, where the effect is small.
- Prices are the exchange's mark, without bids and asks. Real fills will be slightly worse.
- Part of the Friday discount is mechanical: annualized volatility re-prices the dead weekend hours, and that's a fair price, not a discount.
- Options with less than a day to expiry are outside this study.
- For BTC the Friday to Saturday effect flipped sign in 2026 (18 weekends): the shape of the week is stable, that single step isn't.
Got an options question of your own?
This study started as one plain question: is it true that options are cheaper over the weekend? We run the same pipeline on request: your idea, tested on years of Deribit data, with a verdict. A negative verdict is an answer too.
Order a studyRead next
- ETH crash insurance: far puts over two years
- The Pendulum: four versions, updated daily
- Plans and research on request
Not investment advice. The study describes past data; options can lose their entire value.