Sentiment in bitcoin the market has turned bullish and traders are betting on a rally above $80,000, with traders positioning for a rally above $80,000.
That’s the message from decentralized exchange that offers on-chain trading of crypto futures and options.
“Current option prices show roughly a 35% probability that BTC will reach above $80K by the end of June,” Nick Forster, founder of on-chain options platform, Derive.xyz, told CoinDesk in an email. “Combined with a lopsided recovery, this activity suggests that many traders expect bitcoin to recover towards the $80,000 level between June and September.”
Options are derivative contracts that let you bet on BTC prices moving up or down, but with a built-in safety net that ensures you only lose a small upfront fee, not your entire account, if the bet fails. It is similar to buying a lottery ticket.
A call lets you bet on price increases, while a put lets you bet on price dumps. The latter is therefore seen as a protective hedge.
Traders typically track options biases—the telltale price difference between calls and puts—to sniff out where the market is leaning. Calls more expensive than puts indicate bullish tilt, while the put premium suggests otherwise.
BTC’s bias recovers
Bitcoin’s seven-day and 30-day skews have fallen back to -6% from the -25% panic low in early February, when BTC cratered towards $25,000.
The shift signals that traders are dialing back on protective puts – less fall protection, more steady nerves.
“Despite earlier fears of a catastrophic crash in the crypto markets, derivatives markets suggest that these concerns may have been overstated. BTC skew – a key measure of sentiment in options markets – has risen sharply from around -25% (normalized by implied volatility of the money) to around +10%, shifting away from an aggressive bearish today, signaling a significant downward shift today.
Biases based on leading centralized election exchange Deribit paints a similar picture.
According to Forster, put shorting (writing) has increased across venues in recent days, a sign that traders are willing to take on downside risk in exchange for premium, consistent with expectations of stabilizing or rising prices.
At press time, bitcoin was changing hands near $70,000, up nearly 5% for the month, according to CoinDesk data.
