Key Highlights
- Bitcoin options activity is focused around the $60,000-$70,000 range as volatility falls.
- Bitcoin is trading near $62,900, with $63,220 now an important weekly closing level.
- Falling price and open interest suggest leveraged long positions are being closed or liquidated.
Bitcoin’s options market is becoming calmer, but that does not mean traders are retiring from the market.
According to data from Glassnode on August 12, options activity is becoming more focused around the $60,000 to $70,000 range, as Bitcoin trades near $62,600 and faces pressure from falling prices and weaker support around the low-$60,000 area.
The biggest change is in Bitcoin’s expected short-term movement. Glassnode said one-week at-the-money implied volatility has fallen toward 26%, while six-month implied volatility remains close to 39%.
In short, options traders expect Bitcoin to make smaller moves in the near term, even though they still see more uncertainty over the coming months.
The options market is also showing less demand for protection against a Bitcoin drop. Glassnode said 25-delta skew has fallen across different time periods, with the one-week figure moving toward about 5%. Skew helps show whether traders are paying more attention to protection against a rise or fall. In this case, the decline suggests traders are less focused on protecting themselves from a sharp drop.
Traders show less fear of a drop in Bitcoin price
But there is another part of the data that makes the current setup more interesting. Glassnode said gamma exposure remains heavily concentrated around Bitcoin’s current price.
Negative gamma is grouped around the low-$60,000 area, while positive gamma is building closer to $70,000. Gamma helps show how options positioning can affect trading around certain prices. This puts the two ends of the range in focus, with $60,000 and $70,000 becoming important levels to watch.
Glassnode said the options market is “less defensive, but not complacent.” The firm said falling implied volatility and skew show reduced fear in the near term, while the concentration of gamma and activity around key strikes keeps the $60,000-$70,000 range as the main area for Bitcoin’s next major move.
Bitcoin struggles to hold above $63K
Meanwhile, Bitcoin is already showing signs of weakness, trading near the lower end of the $60k range on Friday. As of the time of reporting, the asset is trading for $62,896, down about 1.16% over the last 24 hours.
The decline came even as US stocks reached record highs, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both higher at the time of reporting.
Trader and analyst Rekt Capital said Bitcoin needs to finish the week above $63,220. He warned that a weekly close below that level could increase the chance of a breakdown. He also said $63,000 has been losing its strength as support during August, while Bitcoin’s 50-month exponential moving average at $65,827 has become resistance.
Leveraged long positions face growing pressure
At the same time, pressure is building on traders who used leverage to bet on Bitcoin rising. CryptoQuant community analyst BorisD said Binance open interest reached $8.15 billion on Wednesday. Open interest measures the value of active futures positions, giving a picture of how much money is committed to the derivatives market.
As Bitcoin started falling, open interest also dropped. The latest price-to-open-interest correlation on Binance stood at 0.25. BorisD said the fall in both price and open interest suggests that some leveraged long positions are being closed, stopped out or liquidated.
The analyst said Bitcoin could move toward $61,000 if the current liquidity around the monthly open is not enough. A deeper move could then bring $57,000 and below into focus, where he said the largest liquidity pool remains.
For now, the options market is quiet, but the price levels underneath that calm are telling a different story. With Bitcoin near $62,600, traders are observing whether the market can hold the low-$60,000 area or begin moving toward the $70,000 side of the range.
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