Bitcoin open interest has claimed a new all-time high amid bullish bets on higher prices despite the recent pullback.
The correction comes on the back of a renewed escalation of the trade war, as President Donald Trump recently threatened to impose a 50% tariff on all EU imports and a 25% tariff on Apple products unless iPhones are produced domestically.
Bitcoin Open Interest Hits ATH Despite Fresh Pullback
In response, Bitcoin dropped drastically after recently hitting a new all-time high close to $112,000. Notably, from a peak of $111,176 earlier today, the crypto firstborn collapsed to an intraday low of $107,367, marking a sharp 3.43% drop in under two hours. This represented one of Bitcoin’s sharpest slumps in recent times.
Bitcoin 15m Chart
However, it saw an immediate recovery shortly after. Despite the rebound effort, the asset is still suffering from the recent crash, posting a 1.83% loss on the day, as the bears threaten to trigger Bitcoin’s largest losing day since April 13.
Also, the broader crypto market reacted bearishly, with the global crypto market cap losing a whopping $107.61 billion within three hours today. Nonetheless, despite the fresh bearishness, reports from Bloomberg confirm that bulls remain unbothered, as Bitcoin open interest has continued to spike today.
Interestingly, data from Coinglass indicates that Bitcoin open interest hit $80.16 billion today. This represents an increase of over $2 billion from the figure recorded yesterday, May 22, and marks a new all-time high for Bitcoin open interest in the futures market.
Bitcoin Open Interest | Coinglass
Bitcoin Open Interest Skews Bullish
The Bloomberg report also highlighted data from Deribit suggesting that this surge in Bitcoin’s open interest skews mainly toward bullish sentiment.
Notably, an investigation carried out by The Crypto Basic confirmed this. Specifically, for the June 27 expiration data, the total call open interest is 66,510 contracts, out of which 17,717 are ITM (in-the-money) and 48,793 are OTM (out-of-the-money). This corresponds to a notional value of about $7.29 billion for calls, with OTM calls representing over 73% of that.
On the put side, the total open interest is 36,663 contracts, with only 1,489 ITM and 35,174 OTM, making nearly 96% of puts OTM. Essentially, the notional value for puts is $4.02 billion.
Bitcoin Options | Deribit
Combined, the puts and calls give a total notional value of $11.31 billion, with most of it, over 81%, in out-of-the-money contracts.
This means most of the capital is betting on large moves that have not yet materialized. Importantly, calls make up the larger portion of both open interest and notional value, suggesting a skew toward bullish positioning.
From a sentiment standpoint, this data leans bullish. The dominance of call options over puts, especially with the large number of OTM calls, indicates that more market participants are expecting higher Bitcoin prices by late June.
Other Bullish Metrics
In addition, institutional interest in Bitcoin through the ETF products is through the roof. Yesterday, total net inflows into Bitcoin ETFs hit a high of $934.74 million, according to data from Sosovalue. This represented the highest intraday net flow this month, bringing total assets in these products to $134.3 billion.
Bitcoin ETF Netflows | Sosovalue
Notably, the bullish sentiment is expected, considering these metrics as well as recent reports suggesting that despite BTC claiming new ATHs, retail investors are yet to decisively enter the market. Currently, Bitcoin changes hands at $109,653.
