Bitcoin The price may have risen almost 7% since Sunday, but conviction remains weak, with the recovery stalled near $72,000 ahead of key binary risks, including Friday’s US inflation report and US-Iran truce talks this weekend.
The cautious approach is evident in the options market, where institutions continue to seek profits through derivative contracts that allow traders to bet on the profits of the underlying asset.
According to QCP Capital, options linked to BlackRock’s spot bitcoin ETF (IBIT) show the $45 call expiring in May. That means traders expect the IBIT price to rise above that level from the current $40. Bitcoin options on Deribit have seen similar flows, with the $80,000 call option emerging as the most popular bet. Still, demand persists for puts, which offer downside protection.
“IBIT options showed sustained open interest on the May 45 call, holding over 80,000 contracts for the week, while downside covering was maintained through puts and long protection. The mix reflects a market that is engaging in, but not exiting, covering the upside,” the Singapore-based trading firm, which is one of the world’s largest crypto market makers, said in an email.
The difficult demand for downside protection is also revealed in the options bias, which measures the price spread between calls and puts, and remains negative across all time frames. That indicates a persistent bias toward puts.
“The skewed picture is clear: institutions are buying protection on the downside and selling options on the upside. After the Iran war headlines, some of the tail risk has been priced in, so the skew has eased, but the underlying flow remains firmly one-way. Demand for puts, supply for calls,” Maxime Seiler, CEO of STS Digital, a major trading firm specializing in digital asset derivatives, told CoinDesk.
The US consumer price index (CPI) for March is expected to show a sharp rise in annualized inflation to well above 3%, driven primarily by rising energy prices.
This should not be a surprise, given that the Iran war caused a sharp increase in oil and gasoline prices around the world. Still, markets may see volatility if the core figure, which excludes food and energy, exceeds the annualized estimate of 2.7%. This would further solidify the case for Fed rate hikes, which could impact risk assets like BTC.
Beyond the CPI, the weekend meeting between Iranian and American delegates in Pakistan is the key to financial market stability. The BTC rally is likely to accelerate if they find a way to end the war and normalize oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. The first signs could come through the oil perpetual futures listed on Hyperliquid. Stay alert!
What is trend?
Today’s sign
The chart shows swings in the ICE BofA US Bond Market Options Volatility Estimate (MOVE), which reflects the volatility of US Treasury futures.
Strong spikes in the index indicate growing uncertainty around inflation, interest rates or macroeconomic shocks. Treasury bonds anchor global finance and the creation of collateral and credit. Increased turmoil in US bonds therefore often coincides with tighter financial conditions and broader risk-averse sentiment spilling over into equity, credit and cryptocurrency markets.
The index jumped in March, rising from 73% to 115%, only to fall again to 74% this month. It showed that the world’s largest bond market is calm again, a green signal for cryptocurrency bulls.
Read more: For an analysis of current activity in altcoins and derivatives, see Crypto markets today .
For a more complete list of this week’s events, check out CoinDesk’s “Crypto Week Ahead.”
