Bitcoin News

Story: Bitcoin Options Bets on $120K Strike Reveal Dramatic CME Open Interest Collapse

By Bruce Buterin

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CME Open Interest Falls Off a Cliff. A drop of that magnitude — from close to $290 million to $30-40 million — is the kind of move that…

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The $120K Trade: Optimism or Speculation?. Targeting $120,000 by December 2026 is an aggressive call.

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What the Shift Means for Market Watchers. The combination of shrinking near-term open interest and growing appetite for high-strike…

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Bitcoin was sitting at $64,159 as of 6:45 p.m. Eastern on a Saturday, and the derivatives market was already telling a different story than the spot price.

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That's a bold position. And it's happening against a pretty striking backdrop: CME bitcoin options open interest has cratered.

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The numbers don't quite fit together at first glance.

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What's unclear is exactly why. Market corrections can do it. Broader macro uncertainty can do it.

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But the timing matters. The pullback in open interest seems to coincide with traders shifting attention toward longer-dated positions — specifically those December 2026 expiries…

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Targeting $120,000 by December 2026 is an aggressive call. At $64,159, Bitcoin would need to roughly double to hit that strike.

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Related: Bitcoin Options Worth $1.9 Billion Expire as Prices Slide Toward $62,800

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The concentration of interest around that specific strike and that specific expiry says something about trader sentiment right now. It's not cautious. It's not hedging.

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That said, options markets can be noisy. Heavy open interest at a strike doesn't mean those traders are right. It means they're willing to pay for the possibility.

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The derivatives market is basically a running vote on expectations, and right now the vote is leaning hard toward a big move higher before the end of 2026.

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The combination of shrinking near-term open interest and growing appetite for high-strike long-dated calls is a specific kind of signal.

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Read also: Attorney Ian Cohen Takes On $238 Billion Fight Over Satoshis Untouched Bitcoin Wallets

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