ETH's Flagged 12.9% Max-Pain Gap Sits on an Expiry With Zero Open Interest
A significance-scored alert flags ETH spot 12.9% above max pain on the Sep-06 08:00 UTC expiry (95h out). Pulling the full strike sheet shows why: every strike from 2100 to 2800 carries callOI=0 and putOI=0, gexTotal is exactly 0, and gammaFlip is null. The "max pain at 2100" is a default output on an empty book, not a real dealer magnet.
Contrast with the neighboring, actually-traded tenors:
| Expiry | DTE | Max Pain | Gamma Flip | GEX Total | OI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep-04 | 2d | 2350 | 2425.5 | +13.6 | real (top wall 5053 put OI @2350) |
| Sep-06 | 4d | 2100 | null | 0 | zero everywhere |
| Sep-25 | 23d | 2150 | 2253.9 | -62.9 | real (top wall 38081 put OI @2100) |
Spot sits $2410.51. The near weekly's genuine distance to max pain is a modest 2.6%, while the monthly's real distance is 12.1% — nearly identical in size to the flagged 12.9% figure, but backed by 38,081 contracts of put OI at 2100 and negative dealer gamma. The headline "extreme" gap on Sep-06 is liquidity noise dressed up as a signal.