BTC options OI (30d sma) has reached a new historical high! It has reached a scale of 563,242 BTC. In the last cycle, the derivatives market was mainly dominated by perpetual/futures contracts, and the weight of the options market was not large.
However, this cycle is different; more institutions, while holding BTC spot, will use the unique leverage properties of options for hedging, arbitrage, selling volatility, buying protection, and so on. For example, in the past, risks could only be avoided by selling spot; now, buying puts can achieve the same purpose, which also significantly reduces the selling pressure on the spot market.
Therefore, the direction of the option market premium represents the traders' (especially institutions) predictions and attitudes towards the current market conditions, which is very valuable for reference. Figures 2-3 show the flow of options premiums (net buying/net selling) for the three key strike prices of 85,000, 90,000, and 92,000.
(Figure 2)
Figure 2: Large volume of buying Call options; instead of using high leverage to buy OTM (out-of-the-money options), buying ITM (in-the-money options) is a more conservative bullish behavior, indicating that funds are still willing to heavily bet on bullish positions and believe that BTC will likely remain above 85,000 for a while, with the opportunity to continue rising.
Figure 3: Large volume of selling Put options; 90,000 is closer to the current BTC price and is the market's focal price (high OI, high volume), which is one of the strongest bullish behaviors in the entire chart. The bet is that BTC will not drop below 90,000, and even if it does, there is a willingness to buy here. Therefore, it can be understood that the market's attitude towards 90,000 is that it serves as the main support in the short term.
(Figure 4)
Figure 4: Large volume of buying Put + buying Call, the market is betting on the 'next trend'; this is a typical volatility trading behavior, where the direction is uncertain, but the volatility is expected to increase. This is the intersection of market pressure and support, and also the midpoint of large Gamma. Therefore, buying Call and Put options simultaneously here.
Simple summary:
1. Funds are simultaneously using 85,000 in-the-money Calls to leverage bullish positions while selling Puts to collect premiums, which essentially expresses with real money: even if there is an adjustment, it is more inclined to treat 85,000 as a buy point on a pullback rather than the starting point of a new round of deep declines.
2. The large volume of selling Put options at 90,000 indicates that there is funding betting that this is short-term support.
3. Buying Call options near the current price + large volume of buying Put options simultaneously indicates that funds are preparing for the next major fluctuation.
