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Options, demystified.
Long-form guides to the concepts that drive equity and crypto price action: SPX 0DTE, dealer positioning, gamma exposure, max pain, implied volatility, skew, term structure, and the mechanics of options expiry. Written for traders, in plain English, with no fluff.
Gamma Exposure (GEX) Explained
Dealer positioning, the zero-gamma flip, and why some weeks pin while others run.
Max Pain Explained
The strike that hurts buyers most, why dealers help price get there, and where the theory breaks.
Implied Volatility, Skew, and Term Structure
IV, skew, term structure, and the volatility surface in one guide.
BTC Options Expiry (OpEx)
Friday 08:00 UTC mechanics on Deribit and the playbook traders use around expiry.
Dealer Positioning Explained
How market makers’ books are inferred from public data and why their hedging dominates intraday flow.
Funding Rates Explained
How perpetual funding works, what it tells you about positioning, and how to trade extremes.
Liquidations & Cascades Explained
Where stops cluster, how liquidation cascades self-reinforce, and how to read the heatmap.
CVD & Order Flow Explained
Cumulative volume delta, taker aggression, and the divergences that signal exhaustion.
Options Greeks Explained
Delta, gamma, theta, vega, and the higher-order Greeks that drive crypto dealer flow.
0DTE Options Explained
Same-day expiry mechanics, why dealer hedging concentrates on Friday 08:00 UTC, and how to trade it.
Gamma Squeeze in Crypto
Self-reinforcing rallies driven by dealer hedging, how to spot the setup, and how not to be exit liquidity.
Open Interest Explained
What OI is, how it differs from volume, and how rising and falling OI translate to positioning.
The Basis Trade Explained
Long spot, short perp, collect funding. The cleanest delta-neutral yield strategy in crypto.
SPX 0DTE Options Explained
Same-day expiry mechanics on the S&P 500, dealer gamma at the pin, and why 0DTE dominates flow.
SPX Gamma Exposure Explained
How to read GEX on the S&P 500, the zero-gamma flip, and why some SPX weeks pin while others break.
SPX Dealer Positioning Explained
Why the standard call-long / put-short assumption misleads on SPX, and what a flow-based approach captures instead.
OpEx Explained: Monthly Options Expiration
Third-Friday monthly OpEx, quadruple witching, dealer rolls, and how expiration reshapes flow.
See it live
Everything in these guides, plotted in real time on the BackQuant Terminal.
Live SPX, NDX, and single-name gamma exposure alongside BTC, ETH, and 100+ crypto assets. Max pain, dealer positioning derived from options flow, IV surfaces, term structure, and OpEx countdowns - in one terminal.