Crypto Whale Takes $150M Bullish Bet on Ether, Trading Data Tracker Shows

The large flow was concentrated in the so-called out-of-the-money calls, indicating a bullish outlook on the second-largest cryptocurrency by market volume, according to Greeks.Live

The ether (ETH) market has come alive with a whale, or investor with ample capital supply, trading large amounts of call options.

In the past 24 hours, a whale has bought nearly 92,600 ETH call option contracts worth $150 million on the crypto exchange Deribit, according to options data tracking website Greeks.Live. On Deribit, one options contract represents 1 ETH.

SEC ‘Laying Out Some Rules’ as Regulator Fines Stoner Cats…

Crypto Startup Investments Fall for Fifth Consecutive…

Bitcoin Price Hovers Around $26K as U.S. Inflation Is…

Stablecoins, DeFi Likely to Be SEC’s Next Targets in U.S.…

Coinbase’s New Blockchain Sees Muted Inflows on Launch…

Binance.US Sees Another Two Executives Depart Crypto…

“The whale actively bought $150 million worth of notional ETH calls, and all of them were naked buys, with clear long-term bullish expectations,” Greeks.Live tweeted on X.

Call options give the purchaser the right but not the obligation to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined price at a later date. A call buyer is implicitly bullish on the market. A naked position is taken speculatively without cover or protection against adverse movement in the underlying asset’s price.

The large flow was concentrated in the so-called out-of-the-money (OTM) calls at strike levels well above ether’s current market price of $1,633. Whales blocked over 40,000 contracts of ETH December expiry call at $2,200 and nearly 50,000 contracts of October expiry call at $2,000. A block trade is a large transaction negotiated over-the-counter of outside of the exchange’s order book to ensure minimum impact on the market price of the asset. Block traders are considered a proxy for institutional activity.

Ether hit a six-month low of $1,532 last week as traders digested the possibility of bankrupt digital assets exchange FTX selling assets from its multibillion-dollar cryptocurrency holdings.

Recommended for you:

• EY’s Crypto Tax Leader Breaks Down What You Need to Know This Tax Season
• NFL Quarterback Trevor Lawrence and Two YouTube Influencers Settle FTX Case
• Winklevoss Twins Lent Their Crypto Platform Gemini $100M: Bloomberg

Since then, ether has bounced to $1,634. Prices have risen 36% this year. According to research firm RxR, the cryptocurrency is trading at a discount of 27% to its fair value based on a Metcalf law model, incorporating active user adoption on both the mainnet and the layer 2 scaling solution.