cointelegraph.com
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 billion in options contracts are set to expire. #Bitcoin price expectations for April are high with lots of investors placing their new bets on $80k. pic.twitter.com/xRipoAaD1F
— Jan & Yann (@Negentropic_) March 24, 2021
Should the price be less than $80,000 at the end of April, the contracts will expire worthless, indicating high conviction that the Bitcoin markets are still a long way from topping out among derivatives traders.
However, according to crypto derivatives data aggregator Skew, probability estimates based on market data for the April 30 contract suggests there is just a 6.19% chance of BTC prices being above $80,000 when the positions mature.
Despite the entrance of institutional derivatives exchange Chicago Mercantile Exchange into the Bitcoin options sector in January 2020, Deribit still dominates options trade volume.
Skew estimates 91% of BTC options contracts traded in the past 24 hours changed hands on Deribit, followed by Bit.com with 5%, OKEx with 2%, and CME and LedgerX with roughly 1% each.