The ‘$300K Bitcoin Lottery’ Grows Even Bigger as Traders Chase Upside – Time to Step Back?

The surging popularity of Deribit’s $300,000 Bitcoin call option for the June 27 expiry highlights a significant bullish sentiment among traders. This option, representing a bet on Bitcoin exceeding $300,000 by the end of June, has become the most actively traded contract, with a notional open interest exceeding $600 million—a substantial increase from $484 million just three weeks prior. This signifies aggressive speculative positioning, driven by confidence in continued Bitcoin price appreciation.

Deribit’s overall notional options open interest recently reached a record high of $42.5 billion, reflecting strong market activity. The platform’s new block RFQ (Request for Quote) system also achieved record daily volumes nearing $1 billion. A call option grants the buyer the right, but not the obligation, to purchase Bitcoin at a predetermined price by a specific date. The $300,000 call option represents a threefold price increase from the current level, a seemingly ambitious target given the short timeframe.

However, this aggressive bullishness mirrors a recent trend on Deribit, with traders increasingly favoring short-term options to capitalize on potential upside. This is evident in front-end risk reversals, where the demand for short-term calls exceeds that of longer-term ones—a deviation from the usual pattern. The positive risk reversals across the board strongly suggest a prevailing bullish bias, fueled further by anticipation surrounding the Bitcoin 2025 conference in Las Vegas.

Despite the bullish sentiment, this high demand for short-term calls could be a contrarian indicator. Markus Thielen of 10x Research suggests that such speculative exuberance often precedes market peaks. The options market is signaling a warning, with seven-day calls trading at a 10% premium to puts. A skew of nearly -10%, where calls price in significantly more volatility than puts, implies aggressive upside chasing rather than downside risk hedging. This extreme skew level often reflects peak bullish sentiment, serving as a potential contrarian signal for a potential market correction.