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The past week saw far fewer relief rallies in spot price than the week that preceded it. Instead, BTC plunged from $105K all the way down past $82K. Not only did that wipe out all of its year-to-date gains, but it also meant the average ETF investor is now firmly underwater, with the average entry price circa $89k.
The move lower in spot price accelerated over the past 24 hours following a stronger-than-expected September jobs report and an announcement from the BLS that there will be no October report – both pieces of news the market has taken as a sign the Fed may not need to cut rates in December.
Options markets reacted as expected: short-tenor volatility has exploded higher at the front end of the term structure following a move in realized volatility and traders priced in a significant premium for short-dated bearish put options.
Block Scholes’ Risk Appetite Index measures the level of euphoria (above 1) or panic (below -1) in the spot market. Momentum in this index shows a strong relationship to spot returns.
Since the Oct 10, 2025 leverage unwind, further legs lower in spot prices has seen a further fall in the open interest of large-cap perpetual swap contracts. More than a month later, we still find continued evidence of subdued appetite from retail Bybit traders to reopen the positions that were closed in early October.
Open interest in the tracked tokens below has moved sideways around $9B and far lower than the $16B in notional positions prior to Oct 10, 2025. The lack of interest to re-open leveraged positions is not surprising.
Following yesterday’s (Thursday, Nov 20) NFP report (which showed 119K jobs added by the US economy in September, against expectations of 50K, along with and a slight tick up in the unemployment rate), risk-assets including BTC and US equities sharply repriced lower. That’s due to a stronger-than-expected jobs print which suggests the Fed may not need to cut rates in December as well as the BLS announcing a lack of an October jobs report, adding to the data blackout at the Fed.
Interestingly, despite the recent pullbacks in spot price, first to $95K then $90K and now towards April 2025 lows, we haven’t seen a big drop in open interest, suggesting these selloffs may be more attributed to the spot market, and not leveraged positions.
The modest bounces in spot price that we highlighted last week proved futile. Over the past week, BTC has fallen from $105K all the way down to a local bottom of $83K. Spot price falling below $90K marked an important level for several reasons:
First, it meant that BTC had wiped out all its year-to-date gains, now significantly underperforming both US tech stocks, as well as safe-haven assets such as gold.
Secondly, $89K is the average entry price of all ETF inflows since their launch, meaning the average ETF investor had at least temporarily been underwater.
As such, it is no surprise that a revisit to a low that was last seen in April 2025 stoked a significantly bearish response in options markets, where skew plunged firmly towards OTM puts in BTC. That was a firm indication that traders rushed for downside protection against an even deeper dip below $83K for BTC. Much of that bearish skew was priced out just as quick as it occurred, but options markets still remain unequivocally bearish.
BTC options traders are assigning a 10%+ implied volatility premium to put options expiring in the next 7 days.