BTC options indicate bearish conditions as traders signal pessimism

The BTC options market reveals growing pessimism, with more active hedging against further price slides. The prevalence of put options, with growing volumes and open interest, suggests traders are preparing for downside movements. 

BTC options have pointed to risk mitigation from price drops over the past three months. The data drew even more attention, as BTC sank to a five-month low at $97,000. 

Put options further increased their dominance as BTC dipped under $100,000, anticipating a lower range based on previous drawdown levels. 

Additional pressure for hedging comes from the Deribit implied volatility index, which has been rising since September. The index expanded to the highest levels since June, causing a shift in options positions. 

BTC options point to a dip as low as $80,000

The recent market downturn caused a shift in put options, pointing to three levels of expected price drops. A total of $1.58B put options were opened at $90,000. 

The other significant levels point to a potential dip for BTC to $85,000 or even $80,000. The most numerous contract by value is the $85,000 put option, with a notional value of $1.7B. 

Put options dominate the upcoming monthly BTC options expiry on Deribit. | Source: Deribit

Put options also dominate for the November 28 monthly expiry event. Both weekly and monthly contracts until the end of 2025 have a slight dominance of put options. 

BTC traders are signaling that a recovery may be possible with a price hike above $110,000. Above that price, call options still dominate, with a concentration at the $140,000 level. 

Over the past months, BTC has had some dramatic recoveries and rallies, seemingly unrelated to the options market. However, the ratio of put to call contracts suggested that traders considered the potential for a bear market, and hedged all the way down from the all-time highs of October 6 at above $126,000.

BTC options expire below max pain

The weekly Deribit options expiry also happened under bearish conditions. Deribit noted the current weekly expiry happened way below the accumulated liquidity and below the maximum pain price of $105,000. 

The recent weekly contracts for BTC had a notional value of $3.95B with another $730M for ETH. The put/call ratio for BTC pointed to bearish conditions at 0.61, while ETH had a lower ratio of 0.59. 

After the options expiry, both BTC and ETH continued to slide, while market sentiment remains negative and traders act fearfully. 

The past few months also saw a gradual increase in put options, making up to 30% of trading, and signaling risk aversion. 

Options trading also signals further pessimism for Q4, not repeating the performance of 2024. Deribit retained high levels of open interest at over $36B, while direct derivative trading has slowed down due to the higher risk of liquidations. 

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