coindesk.com
Ether’s options market has come alive with the cryptocurrency resuming the uptrend from July lows.
Major exchanges traded 172,472 ether (ETH) options contracts on Wednesday, the highest single-day figure since May 20, according to data tracked by Glassnode. Deribit, the world’s largest crypto options exchange, alone accounted for 172,000 contracts, while OKEx contributed the rest.
Including over-the-counter trading, daily volume tallied more than $630 million in nominal terms, also the highest in over three months. Over-the-counter tech platform Paradigm accounted for 40% of the global volume, Paradigm’s co-founder, Anand Gomes, told CoinDesk. Trades facilitated by Paradigm are automatically executed, margined, and cleared at Deribit.
“Our highest market share for ETH has been 45% so yesterday was one of our highest days,” Gomes said in a Telegram chat. Deribit and Paradigm introduced an institution-focused block-trading service two years ago.
Ether’s rally to 3.5-month highs above $3,800 has boosted options market activity, most of which has been concentrated in the higher strike or out-of-the-money calls or bullish bets.
Deribit data tracked by Laevitas shows Sept. 24 expiry calls at $6,000 and $7,000 registered trading volumes of more than 13,000 contracts as sophisticated traders set up “call spread” strategies at these strikes via over-the-counter tech platform Paradigm.
Call spread strategies involve buying/selling calls at a particular strike ($6,000 in this case) and simultaneously taking an opposite position in the higher strike call ($7,000). However, Paradigm doesn’t reveal the nature of the flows. So, it’s not clear whether traders initiated the limited risk, limited reward bull call spreads by purchasing $6,000 calls and selling an equal number of $7,000 calls or did reverse to set up a bear call spread.
That said, the way the options are priced suggests bullishness in the market. Data provided by derivatives analytics firm Skew shows the one-, three- and six-month put-call skews, which measure the value of puts relative to calls, continue to trade negative, indicating greater demand for calls than puts or bearish bets.
Ether is currently trading near $3,750 on major exchanges.
Also read: Bitcoin Rises Above $50K After Ether’s Biggest Single-Day Gain in 6 Weeks