Acryptoinvest.news: According to Deribit, the largest cluster of Ether call options expiring in June is concentrated at the strike price of $4,000.
Deribit Chief Commercial Officer Luuk Stryers shared charts with The Block that show a notable group of Ether call options at this strike price.
“As seen in Deribit data, the $4,000 strike is the largest for the expiry period in both June and September. We don’t have May maturities traded yet, so we can only look at June and April for Ether,” Stryers said.
The concentration on the $4,000 strike price suggests that market participants have a particular interest or expectation that the price of Ether will rise above $4,000 by the options expiration date. This concentration may reflect consensus or speculation about the potential future movement of the price of Ether in the market.
Traders await approval for spot Ethereum ETF
According to the analyst, it is notable that the concentration of Ether call options at the $4,000 strike price comes after the potential approval of an Ethereum spot ETF by the end of May. The deadline for a final decision on spot ether ETF applications filed by asset managers VanEck and Ark/21Shares with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is May 23.
“Traders appear to be adjusting their Ether options contracts to take the May 23 date into account,” said Bitfinex head of derivatives, Jag Kooner.
However, Stryers said it is too early to conclude whether derivatives traders expect prices to rise following the potential approval of an ETH spot ETF. “The June deviation is higher than the April deviation, indicating that calls are relatively more expensive, but is difficult to attribute specifically to ETF news or the expected correlation with the BTC halving,” he added.
Options are derivative contracts that give the trader the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell an underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specific date.. A call option gives the right to buy, and a put option gives the right to sell.. The trader buying put options is assumed to be bearish on the market, while the buyer of call options is bullish.
On Friday, the price of ether rose more than 2% to $2,470 at 5:30 a.m. ET, according to The Block's Price Page.