Bitcoin Options Price 35% Odds of $80K Rebound by June
Get the Finance newsletter
Daily finance — markets, central banks, M&A, the prints that move money. Free.
- Bitcoin hovered near $70,000 on Wednesday after briefly slipping below $63,000 during last week's initial wave of panic selling tied to the Iran conflict, with longer-horizon holders continuing to accumulate in the $60,000–$70,000 zone according to QCP Capital.
- Derive.xyz data shows options pricing implies roughly a 35% probability bitcoin rises above $80,000 by the end of June, with bitcoin skew rebounding from deeply negative to positive territory and put selling increasing across venues.
- February U.S. CPI came in exactly as expected — headline 2.4% year over year, core 0.2% month over month — but analysts at QCP, 21Shares, and others warned the data predates the oil surge from the Iran conflict and does not capture the energy shock now working through prices.
- Derive also recorded a record onchain bitcoin options trade worth more than $130 million, structured to profit if bitcoin drifts lower to roughly $65,000 by late March, signaling institutions are scaling onchain activity while still hedging macro risk.
- QCP Capital said bitcoin is behaving less like a pure high-beta risk asset and more like a liquidity-sensitive macro instrument, with Pepperstone's Michael Brown noting that nearly every major asset is still trading tick-for-tick with crude.
- The Federal Reserve's March 18 meeting is the next major catalyst, as inflation cooled on paper and the labor market has softened, yet energy markets remain volatile enough to threaten a fresh inflation pulse in the coming data.
Why it matters: The simultaneous shift in options positioning — skew rebounding from deeply negative to positive alongside a record $130 million bearish options trade — shows institutions are hedging two ways at once, scaling into upside bets on a $80,000 rebound while still paying for protection against a slide toward $65,000 before the Fed's March 18 decision on rates.
Ask SkimNews
