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Our weekly crypto derivatives analytics report dives into macro events, the current state of crypto and trading signals from spot trading volume, and futures, options and perpetual contracts.
As the U.S. election nears, short-term implied volatility has risen to multi-month highs, significantly outpacing the longer end of the term structure and causing a notable inversion. This shift indicates heightened positioning activity ahead of the election early next week, similar to the pattern seen before the Bitcoin Spot ETF launch in January 2024.
Meanwhile, ETH derivatives suggest that the second-largest cryptocurrency is likely to maintain its trend of underperformance amid event risk, lagging behind BTC across all metrics and carrying a 10-point volatility premium over it.
Please check out the report’s highlights.
The recent surge in futures open interest has accelerated significantly over the past few days as BTC’s spot price approaches all-time highs, suggesting that traders are positioning themselves for additional price movements across all tenors. However, this increase has been almost exclusively in BTC contracts, with ETH experiencing only a slight uptick in active contracts. Coupled with the less bullish sentiment in ETH options markets, this indicates that traders are much more inclined to take bullish positions for BTC in anticipation of the election than for ETH, despite ETH's recent rally.
Open interest in perpetual swap markets saw a brief decline before sharply recovering alongside spot price rallies, reaching the highest levels this month (October 2024). When combined with the positive funding rates for BTC and ETH, these fluctuations indicate strong bullish demand for leveraged long positions as traders prepare for upcoming event risks. Moreover, while trading volumes remain high, they haven't shown any exceptional activity over the past week, suggesting consistent engagement with perpetuals without significant volatility.
BTC’s implied volatility term structure has experienced a significant inversion, with short-term implied volatility rising sharply to trade at a 10-point premium over longer tenors. This shift indicates heightened expectations in the options markets as the U.S. election approaches, reflecting similar trends seen in futures and perpetuals. This rush to position mirrors market behavior observed in January 2024 ahead of the release of Bitcoin Spot ETFs, when there was a surge in demand for short-term exposure to anticipated volatility. Notably, despite bullish market indicators, open interest has shown a rapid increase in put options, which have reached levels comparable to those for call options.
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