Bitcoin Options Metric Suggests More Traders Are Taking Bullish Bets

Fredrik Vold
Last updated: | 2 min read
Source: AdobeStock / Zeedign.com

 

With a falling ratio of bearish put options to bullish call options in the bitcoin (BTC) options market, the key metric is currently signaling that an increasing number of advanced traders are taking bullish bets on bitcoin.

As of Sunday, the put-to-call ratio in terms of BTC open interest stood at 0.51, signaling that neither the bulls nor the bears have the upper hand at the moment. 

However, it is worth noting that the trend in the put-to-call ratio has been falling for more than a month now, which indicates that there are now more traders that are betting on bullish call options than what was seen a month ago.

All else equal, such a shift in preference for more call options could be bullish for the bitcoin price.

Source: CryptoRank.io

For ethereum (ETH), on the other hand, the picture is a lot messier, with no clear trend for the put-to-call ratio to be seen.

As of Sunday, the put-to-call ratio in terms of ETH open interest stood at 0.39, which in itself means that more traders are trading bullish call options than bearish put options. The figure is up from Friday, when the ratio stood at 0.38, but still lower than on several other days last week, making it difficult to rely on as a market indicator.

Source: CryptoRank.io

Looking at the open interest (OI) in bitcoin options in general, we can see that the interest among options traders has seen a slight uptick since crashing in December last year. As of Sunday, total open interest in BTC options reached USD 8.25bn, up from USD 7.25bn at the beginning of the month, and USD 6.1bn on February 1.

Source: CryptoRank.io

Moving to ETH options, the picture changes somewhat, with less open interest now than at the beginning of the month. As of Sunday, USD 4.87bn in open interest was seen in the ETH options market. That compares to a level from March 1 of USD 5.54bn and on February 1 of USD 5.15bn open interest.

Source: CryptoRank.io

As usual in the crypto options market, Deribit remains the dominant marketplace both in terms of open interest and trading volume. Out of the USD 8.25bn in total BTC options open interest on Sunday, USD 6.8bn was seen on Deribit. Similarly, USD 325m out of a total options volume of 468m on Sunday was traded on Deribit, with OKX coming in second.

As of 11:50 UTC on Monday, BTC traded at USD 38,971, up 0.6% for the past 24 hours and 1.4% for the past 7 days. At the same time, ETH stood at USD 2,583, nearly unchanged for the past 24 hours and up almost 1% for the past 7 days.

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