Ethereum Flips Bitcoin In Options Market For The First Time In History

Open interest in Ethereum ETH/USD options exceeded that of Bitcoin BTC/USD for the first time on Monday.

What Happened: According to data from Glassnode, at press time, the cumulative value of open interest on ETH contracts on dominant crypto derivatives exchange Deribit stood at $5.6 billion, outpacing the $4.3 billion in open interest for BTC.

Deribit accounts for more than 90% of global crypto trading volume and open interest.

The majority of ETH options were call options, evidenced by a Put/Call ratio of 0.26. Meanwhile, BTC options had a Put/Call ratio of 0.5.

The largely bullish nature of bets on ETH comes as the Merge looms closer, signifying the blockchain’s transition to Proof-of-Stake that will bring a host of changes, including a reduction in ETH’s net issuance.

Deribit Insights noted that at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility for ETH has spiked more significantly than implied volatility for BTC.

“The levels of ATM volatility implied by BTC options spiked in a similar way to ETH’s during both spikes in May and June, but took a leg up of only 10 vol percentage points in the aftermath of each crash in contrast to ETH’s two 20 vol point steps,” wrote Deribit.

“That has resulted in a three-month-long trend of ETH’s ATM vol outperforming that of BTC, an occurrence somewhat to be expected given the former’s larger downturn from November’s all-time highs.”

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, at press time, BTC was trading at $22,946, down 1.9% over 24 hours. ETH was trading at $1,594, down 5.85% over the same period.