Bitcoin $100K Bullish Bet Draws Nearly $1B Open Interest on Deribit

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Need evidence of just how bullish the bitcoin (BTC) market sentiment is? Look no further than crypto exchange Deribit, where traders have locked in nearly $1 billion in call options at a $100,000 strike, providing buyers with an asymmetric upside above the said level.
As of writing, the dollar value of the number of active call options contracts at the $100,000 strike price was over $993 million, the highest among all other BTC options listed on the exchange, according to data source Deribit Metrics. On Deribit, one options contract represents one BTC.
The second most popular option was the $70,000 call, boasting an open interest of over $800 million. More importantly, call options accounted for over 50% of the total BTC options open interest of $14.15 billion on the exchange.
“The highest open interest across all expirations appears at $100K and $70K for bitcoin, which some market participants interpret as supporting the bullish sentiment that seems to be pervading the market,” crypto trading firm Wintermute said in a note shared with CoinDesk.
A call buyer has the right but not the obligation to purchase the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date and is implicitly bullish on the market. Traders, anticipating price rallies, often buy cheap out-of-the-money options like the $100,000 call, which are relatively cheaper than those closer to the ongoing spot price.
BTC options expiring on Nov. 8, the day when the results of U.S. election results will be announced, boast a cumulative open interest of $938 million, with $117 million concentrated in the $45,000 strike put options.
The popularity of the $45,000 points is consistent with the tendency of traders to seek downside hedges ahead of a binary event like the election results.
“The volatility surface indicates a bias toward the downside until late October/November when the market begins to favor calls over put protection. Current positioning suggests support for a post-election rally,” Jake Ostrovskis, OTC Trader at Wintermute, told CoinDesk in an email.
Open interest in December expiry is concentrated heavily in call options, with the $100,000 strike being the most popular in a sign of expectations of a year-end surge.
Traders over decentralized betting platform Polymarket see a low probability of the cryptocurrency tapping the !00,000 mark by the end of the year.
At press time, the Yes side shares in the “Will Bitcoin Hit $100K in 2024” contract traded at 15 cents, representing a minuscule probability of a rally into six figures. The contract will automatically resolve to yes should BTC’s price Coinbase hit a high of $100,000 on or before Dec. 31.
Meanwhile, traders see just over 50% chance of bitcoin surpassing the record high of $73,798 by the year’s end.
Edited by Parikshit Mishra.

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Omkar Godbole is a Co-Managing Editor on CoinDesk’s Markets team.