The open interest on Bitcoin (BTC) Dec. 31 call options between $100,000 and $300,000 reached an impressive 6,700 contracts, which is currently worth $385 million. These derivatives give the buyer the right to acquire Bitcoin for a fixed price, while the seller is obliged to honor the price. One might think that this is a great way to leverage a long position, but it comes at a cost and is usually quite high. For this right, the buyer pays an upfront fee (premium) to the call option seller. For example, the $100,000 call option is currently trading at 0.164 BTC, …

Ether (ETH) rebounded from a $1,550 low on March 24, which marked a 17% fall from the $1,870 weekly high. Even though the $1.15 billion options expiry in the early hours of March 26 could have pressured Ether price, the continuing surge in gas fees for Ethereum transactions likely played a part. To better assess these forces, one should analyze top traders' exposure using data provided by the largest crypto exchanges. If the case for the options expiry holds, the long-to-short data from whales and arbitrage desks will show buying activity after the options expiry at 8:00 UTC. Although the …

With Coinbase’s highly anticipated direct listing IPO expected to take place next month, options traders appear to be betting that Bitcoin will once again soar to new all-time highs in the coming weeks. On March 24, the founders of crypto analytics firm Glassnode tweeted data suggesting that options traders on peer-to-peer crypto derivatives exchange, Deribit, are loading up on contracts set to expire on April 30 with a strike price of $80,000. Contracts worth a notional value of 4,000 BTC have been purchased targeting the price-point in total, more than any other strike-price by at least 50%. This Friday $6 …

Earlier this week, Cointelegraph reported the importance of the upcoming $6.1 billion Bitcoin (BTC) options expiry on March 26. The article made clear that bulls were in control if one excluded the put (sell) options below $47,000, which is likely the case as BTC currently hovers above $50,000. As the expiry date draws closer, it's less likely that traders will be willing to pay for the right to sell BTC at $47,000. The same could be said for the ultra-bullish call (buy) options at $60,000 and above. Therefore, the $6.1 billion total open interest is heavily inflated by worthless options. …

The biggest-ever Bitcoin options expiry is due on March 26. Over $6 billion worth of Bitcoin (BTC) options will expire across exchanges on Friday, with a majority of these options being on Deribit. This will be a record expiry in terms of the value and number of options — a total of 100,400 Bitcoin options will expire. The previous record was set in January when nearly $4 billion worth of options expired, representing 36% of the open interest at the time. The enormous upcoming expiry comes on the back of rapid growth in open interest in the Bitcoin options market. …

Bitcoin (BTC) is showing tenacity above $50,000 on March 25. The 10% drop over the last 24 hours happened despite Tesla allowing customers to buy vehicles using BTC in addition to CEO Elon Musk affirming that it will not be converted to fiat currency. On March 22, the United States Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, stated that Bitcoin was too volatile, "backed by nothing," and more of an asset for speculation. Curiously, on that same day, BTC lost its $56,000 support, which became a resistance. Traders worry that the pump might have been news-driven, while the downtrend movement shall prevail. …

Chicago-based exchange holding company Cboe markets — an early pioneer of regulated Bitcoin futures trading in the United States — plans to build out more futures products within the crypto sector in future. In a new interview with BNN Bloomberg on March 25, CEO Ed Tilly said that the company's not always straightforward journey until now by no means dampened its commitment. Having been the first North American exchange to list Bitcoin (BTC) futures back in Dec. 2017, the Chicago Board Options Exchange, or CBOE, later ended the product in 2019, faced with stiff competition from popular BTC futures on …

Ether (ETH) lost the $1,750 support on March 22, which marked a 7% loss and $230 million worth of futures contract liquidations. It has been holding near the strong support at $1,670, although investors are unwilling to open new long positions despite the price being 11% below the previous week's high. Binance Chain recently surpassed Ethereum's transaction volume, and this startling growth in unique active wallets certainly played a part in tampering with investors' optimism. The nonfungible token (NFT) frenzy has been driving new projects away from the Ethereum network's high fees. To further complicate things, multiple decentralized finance (DeFi) …

Bitcoin's (BTC) upcoming March 26 options expiry might become the largest ever, with $6.1 billion open interest on the line. With less than 4 days ahead of the settlement date, pro investors will have already set up strategies for the next month. As BTC price has already surged 72.7% since February, most traders are skeptical of another rally taking place over the next couple of weeks. Nevertheless, the $55,000 support has shown strength and is a signal that the uptrend is intact. Whales and arbitrage desks are somehow optimistic, as reflected by the futures contracts premium and top traders' long-to-short …

Futures contracts trading has grown immensely over the past year, and proof of this comes from the total rise in open interest. Open interest is the total number of outstanding contracts, and the figure has risen from $3.9 billion to the current $21.5 billion in six months, a 450% increase. Sometimes traders assume that a high or low funding rate and soaring open interest indicate a bullish market, but as Cointelegraph has explained before, this is not the case. This article will take a quick look at the funding rate and how traders interpret the metric when trading perpetual futures …

Over the past two months, the open interest on Ether (ETH) options increased by 50% to reach $3.1 billion, with ETH price gaining 44% in that time period. Ether's price appreciation and the rising options open interest has resulted in a potentially historic $1.15 billion expiry set for March 26. Most exchanges offer monthly exposures, although a few also hold weekly options for short-term contracts. February faced the most significant expiry on record, with $630 million worth of options contracts, and this figure represented 23% of all the open interest at that time. The above data shows that Ether's March …

Bitcoin (BTC) might have been ranging from $57,000 to $59,500 over the last couple of days, but the top traders at major exchanges have increased their long positions. A similar move also happened in the monthly futures contracts, as the basis rate has increased. After marking a $61,750 all-time high on March 13, Bitcoin has been trying to find new support levels. Although BTC initially held ground at $54,000, there currently seems to be decent buying activity around $57,000. While professional traders' optimism (as measured by their long-to-short exposure and the futures contracts premium) has gone down substantially, their interest …