The spread between BTC and S&P 500 implied volatility indices is widening again.
Market positioning implies a meaningful probability of sub-$80K BTC to start 2026, Derive's Forster said.
The $80K BTC put is now the most popular options play on Deribit.
Glassnode has explained how the Bitcoin options Open Interest has been climbing recently and looks set to explore new all-time highs (ATHs). Bitcoin Options Open Interest Has Already Bounced Back From Oct Expiry In a new thread on X, analytics firm Glassnode has discussed about the Bitcoin options market. This segment of derivatives trading involves traders betting on future price moves through contracts giving the right (but not the obligation) to sell or buy the cryptocurrency at a set price. Related Reading: Bitcoin Erases Recovery As Coinbase Users Relentlessly Sell Earlier, perpetual futures was the main derivatives trading pathway that investors in the sector used, but recently, demand for options has grown enough to challenge the futures market. One way to gauge interest in options is through the Open Interest, an indicator that measures the total amount of contracts related to the market that are currently open on all centralized exchanges. Here is the chart shared by Glassnode that shows the trend in the Bitcoin options Open Interest over the last few months: As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin options Open Interest reached a new record on October 31st. Shortly after, however, the metric saw a plunge due to the contract expiry. Options contracts come with an “expiry” date, on which the contract get either exercised or automatically closed out. A large amount of these expiries coincided on October 31st, which is why the indicator saw a flush. Interestingly, the options Open Interest has been quick to bounce back since then, with its value already halfway back to the ATH. Thus, it would appear demand for options is still alive and well. From the chart, it’s apparent that a similar pattern was also witnessed after the previous major expiry, when the metric gradually recovered and explored new records. “The options market open interest looks set to keep printing new ATHs, expiry after expiry,” explained the analytics firm. Related Reading: Bitcoin At Increased Risk Of Falling To $88,500 Support, Glassnode Warns In terms of trading volume, activity related to the market has been at notable levels since Bitcoin fell below the $107,000 level, as the below chart shows. How the volume related to the options market has changed over the past month | Source: Glassnode on X As Glassnode noted: Options volume has surged since we broke the 107K level and remains elevated showing the constant activities of the traders readjusting their positions and new traders coming in to put on some hedges. As for whether investors are opening bearish or bullish trades with these moves, data suggests bearish bets, or “puts,” initially rose during the plunge, but then bullish bets, or “calls,” saw a surge as price rebounded. Once again, however, puts have seen a rise, indicating investors don’t trust a bottom has appeared yet. BTC Price Bitcoin has retraced its recent recovery as its price is back at $100,900. Featured image from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, chart from TradingView.com
BTC recently fell below $100,000 as macro uncertainties weighed over spot ETF inflows.
Every few months, headlines warn of a looming multi-billion-dollar options expiry poised to shake Bitcoin price. This quarter’s figure, roughly $13 billion in notional contracts, sounds dramatic, yet it’s part of a well-worn pattern on Deribit, the exchange that clears nearly 90% of Bitcoin’s options open interest. The real story isn’t the size of the […]
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Key market dynamic points to potential for heightened market volatility ahead of Friday's options expiry.
The Bitcoin options market has quietly become one of the most revealing arenas for gauging trader sentiment. And right now, it’s flashing mixed but telling signals. While Bitcoin has clawed its way back from the early-October washout that vaporized tens of billions in leveraged bets, the options data suggests investors are still hedging their excitement […]
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Options open interest hits $108 billion, signaling a shift toward more sophisticated and regulated market structures.
Behind every rally and every crash lies an invisible engine: options dealers rebalancing billions in Bitcoin exposure. As open interest pushes past $57 billion, it’s the hedging flows, not sentiment, that now dictate price. For most of Bitcoin’s history, price discovery happened in the spot market. Retail traders and long-term holders set the tone, while […]
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Options flows now shape price direction more than spot trades as institutions lean on Deribit and IBIT to position around volatility.
The new offering comes as there is an increasing demand for hedging instruments across the full spectrum of crypto products.
Bitcoin’s options market has split into two very different regimes: a near-term tape that looks locked in place by dealer hedging, and a year-end setup that seems built to let price roam. Bitcoin price around $113,500, down from the August peak near $119,000, but still higher than where it was in early July. That puts […]
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BTC's upside gathered traction as options worth billions expired on Deribit.
The upcoming nonfarm payrolls report is expected to show an increase of 110,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate steady at 4.2%.
10x Research prefers the short strangle strategy for the second month as market dynamics point to near-term calm.
The impending expiry shows a strong demand for bitcoin put options, indicating a preference for downside protection,
Bitcoin options markets are showing a low volatility expectation, something that has actually preceded sharp price action in the past. Bitcoin Options ATM IV Has Been Going Down Recently In its latest weekly report, on-chain analytics firm Glassnode has talked about the latest trend in the Bitcoin Options At-The-Money Implied Volatility. Implied Volatility (IV) refers to an indicator that measures how volatile BTC is expected to be in the future, based on the pricing of Options contracts. At-The-Money (ATM) IV, the version of the metric of interest here, specifically calculates this expectation for the contracts that have their strike price closest to the asset’s current spot price. The “strike price” is the predetermined price at which the holder of an options contract can choose to buy (in the case of a call or bullish bet) or sell (put or bearish bet) the underlying asset. Related Reading: Ethereum Retail Mood Still Bearish: Perfect Setup For ATH Break? Now, here is the chart shared by the analytics firm that shows the trend in the Bitcoin Options ATM IV for all expiry timeframes: As displayed in the above graph, the Bitcoin Options ATM IV has been following a downtrend since a while now, indicating the traders aren’t expecting near-term volatility. If the past is anything to go by, though, BTC could go against these traders. “Historically, such subdued volatility expectations have often preceded sharp market moves, making them a potential contrarian indicator,” explains Glassnode. From the chart, it’s visible that such a contraction in Bitcoin Options ATM IV also occurred back in 2023 and what followed back then was a bull rally for the cryptocurrency. It now remains to be seen whether volatility in either direction would also follow this compression. Related Reading: XRP To $12? Analyst Reveals Bold Target From Multi-Year Pattern ATM contracts aren’t the only one expecting low volatility. According to the report, Deribit‘s DVOL index, which tracks a 30-day IV measure for all strike prices, has dropped to historically low levels recently. As is apparent in the chart, the Bitcoin DVOL has been going down in the last few months. The index is currently at lows so extreme that only 2.6% of trading days have witnessed a lower value. The analytics firm explains: Such levels often reflect market complacency and limited demand for hedging against large moves. While these conditions can persist, they leave the market exposed to sudden volatility spikes if a catalyst emerges, as past cycles have shown through sharp, disorderly price swings when risk is rapidly repriced. BTC Price At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $121,600, up 5% over the last week. Featured image from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, chart from TradingView.com
Bitcoin’s volatility has been declining but remains higher than traditional assets, making it attractive for income generation but risky for institutions seeking stability.
Bitcoin has set a new all-time high above $121,000, and the options market on Deribit is showing clear signs of hedging pressure and gamma-driven pinning around this level. Traders are in a market structured heavily in favor of upside exposure, with positioning and Greek profiles aligning at a delicate inflection point. Current open interest and […]
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Bitcoin’s derivatives market saw a quiet but meaningful repositioning in July, marked by two liquidation-driven drawdowns in futures and a record expiry event that wiped out over $15 billion in options open interest. These changes took place alongside relatively muted price action, as Bitcoin hovered between $101,000 and $110,000 throughout June before stabilizing near $107,000 […]
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The Bitcoin Options traders have been pricing in low implied volatility, but on-chain data shows a setup ripe for amplified price swings. Bitcoin Options ATM IV Has Been Trending Lower In its latest weekly report, the analytics firm Glassnode has talked about how the volatility risk associated with Bitcoin looks from the perspective of on-chain analysis. Related Reading: Ethereum To $3,400? On-Chain Shows No Big Hurdles Ahead The indicator shared by Glassnode is the Realized Supply Density, which tells us about how concentrated the cryptocurrency’s supply is around the current spot price. When the value of this metric is high, it means the investors have participated in a large amount of buying at or near the asset’s latest price. “In such environments, even modest price fluctuations can affect a broad swath of investors, often amplifying market sensitivity and, in turn, volatility potential,” explains the analytics firm. Below is the chart for the indicator shared by in the report. As is visible in the graph, the Bitcoin Realized Supply Density has gone through an uplift during the past few weeks, which suggests accumulation has taken place around the current spot price. “This concentration raises the probability of outsized reactions to price movements, increasing volatility risk in the near term,” notes Glassnode. While on-chain data may hint that volatility could go up in the future, it would appear the traders on the Options market don’t quite think the same, as the At-The-Money Implied Volatility (ATM IV) has been going down. The IV is a metric that represents the traders’ expectations of how volatile Bitcoin will be over a given period, based on the pricing of Options contracts. The ATM version of the indicator specifically calculates this expectation based on Options closest to the latest spot price. Related Reading: Bitcoin Back At $109,000, But HODLer Profit-Taking Down 89% Here is a chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin Options ATM IV across different expiration timeframes: From the above graph, it’s apparent that the Bitcoin Options ATM IV has been going down for all major tenors, an indication that the traders don’t expect high volatility for the cryptocurrency in the near future. “Historically, such complacency in volatility pricing has often served as a counter-trend signal, preceding periods of heightened volatility,” says the analytics firm. With on-chain data suggesting increased volatility risk and this signal forming at the same time, it now remains to be seen how Bitcoin would develop in the coming days. BTC Price At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $108,800, up more than 3.5% in the last week. Featured image from Dall-E, Glassnode.com, chart from TradingView.com
Following the return above $100,000 in the previous week, Bitcoin has fought well to maintain its hold above the six-figure mark in recent days. While the flagship cryptocurrency retains its six-figure valuation, there’s still some momentum lacking in its price action, as spotlighted by last week’s performance. According to recent analysis, the sluggishness and apparent indecision in the BTC market can be attributed to significant selling pressure in the derivatives market. Interestingly, the latest on-chain data shows that the Bitcoin price still has room for additional growth. Options Market Data Shows Shift In Trader Sentiment In a May 16 post on the X platform, blockchain analytics firm Glassnode shared fresh on-chain insights suggesting a rise in bullish sentiment amongst Bitcoin options traders. The relevant indicator here is the 1-month 25 Delta Skew, which compares the implied volatility of bullish bets (call options) to the bearish bets (put options). Related Reading: Bitcoin Next Leg Up Loading? Analyst Says BTC Could Trade Sideways For Two Weeks When the 1-month 25 Delta Skew is in the positive territory, it implies that puts have higher implied volatility than calls. This trend is often associated with a bullish sentiment where traders are more worried about the asset price falling and are thus paying a premium for downside protection. On the other hand, a negative value for the 1-month 25 Delta Skew indicator signals that calls are more expensive than puts. This suggests that traders are more willing to bet on the price of Bitcoin moving higher than for protection against downside exposure. According to data from Glassnode, the 1-month 25 Delta Skew metric recently witnessed a drop to around -6.1%. This decline, the analytics platform noted, signifies that call options now carry higher implied volatility compared to put options. This options market trend means that there is now rising bullish sentiment amongst Bitcoin traders, as they lean more into betting on the BTC price rising. Glassnode also pointed out that this increasing bullish sentiment reflects a risk-on environment, where traders and investors are more willing to risk their funds. Historically, a negative 25 Delta Skew is a strong bullish sentiment indicator, as it usually precedes further appreciation of the Bitcoin price. Moreover, current options data not only supports BTC’s upward movement, but could also serve as a positive catalyst for more growth as additional long positions enter the market. Bitcoin Price At A Glance As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $102,800, reflecting an over 1% decline in the past 24 hours. Related Reading: JPMorgan Claims Bitcoin Has More Upside Potential Than Gold For Q2—Here’s The Breakdown Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView
Bitcoin (BTC) options open interest expanded from $30.33 billion on April 21 to $37.92 billion on April 24, a 25% jump that outpaced Bitcoin’s 5.5% rise from $87,506 to $92,352 over the same stretch. Such a swift build in notional exposure shows traders rushing to add convex positions rather than thickening linear futures books. This […]
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The two New York Stock Exchange-listed funds are due to start trading on Wednesday.
Analyzing open interest distribution across different strike prices offers critical insights into market sentiment and potential price trajectories. Strike prices represent the specific levels at which options contracts can be exercised — essentially, the prices at which traders can buy or sell Bitcoin if they act on their contracts. Understanding the concentration of open interest […]
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The Deribit-listed $100K strike call has seen the biggest jump in open interest in the past 24 hours.
These new financially settled contracts will expire daily from Monday to Friday.
Some $6 billion of the notional value in bitcoin is currently set to expire out of the money.
The Bitcoin options market saw significant volatility in December, as the total open interest dropped from $44.99 billion to $29.13 billion between Dec. 26 and Jan. 7. This 35% decline marked one of the largest open interest flushes in the past year, fundamentally changing the market’s positioning heading into 2025. The primary catalyst for this […]
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