Market Pulse (Week 32, 08/08/2022 – 15/08/2022)

ETH options open interest at a high as traders pile on leveraged bets. Asset managers’ net-long position in CME BTC futures climbing. ETH enters short-term overbought territory

Aug 15, 2022
Market Pulse

Chart of the Week: In the Mood for Leveraged Bets

  • ETH options open interest has reached a new high at around US$8B. Options are a leveraged play on ETH and traders are likely piling up the bets in anticipation of the mainnet merge in September. Last week, the final testnet merge, Goerli, was successfully completed, giving traders an extra confidence boost.
ETH Options Open Interest at High

Fund Flow Tracker

  • No significant movements in aggregated exchange balances for both BTC and ETH over the past week.
BTC and ETH: Aggregated Exchange Balances
BTC: OTC* Desks Balance and Spot Price

Derivatives Pulse

  • Implied vols and skews (puts minus calls) are subdued. 1-week implied vol currently stands at 58.7% (vs. 63.1% a week ago) and 84.8% (vs. 91.9% a week ago) for BTC and ETH, respectively. Put-call ratios remain at low levels.
Ch 4 4
Ch 5 4
Ch 6 4
Ch 7 2
ETH: Options 25 Delta Skew*
  • Perpetual futures funding rates remain mainly in positive territory for both BTC and ETH over the past week.
BTC: Spot Price and Perpetual Futures Funding Rate
ETH: Spot Price and Perpetual Futures Funding Rate
  • Asset managers’ net-long position in CME Bitcoin futures continues to crawl up, and leveraged traders’ net-short position keeps on reducing. Other reportables’ (which includes corporate treasuries) net-long position has flipped to net-short.
CME Bitcoin Futures - Net Position* by Trader Category
  • Leveraged traders are typically hedge funds and various types of money managers, including commodity trading advisors and commodity pool operators. The traders may be engaged in managing and conducting proprietary futures trading, and trading on behalf of speculative clients.
  • The asset manager category consists of institutional investors, including pension funds, endowments, insurance companies, mutual funds, and those portfolio/investment managers whose clients are predominantly institutional.
  • The dealer category consists of participants typically described as the “sell-side” of the market. These include large banks and dealers in securities, swaps, and other derivatives. The other reportable category consists of traders mostly using markets to hedge business risk, and includes amongst others corporate treasuries.

Technically Speaking

  • BTC and ETH both have momentum in their sails, reclaiming key levels US$24K and US$2K, respectively. However, the surge has driven ETH into short-term overbought territory based on the 14-day Relative Strength Indicator (RSI), with BTC closing in as well.
BTC and ETH: Relative Strength Indicator (14-Day)

Price Movements

Top Movers by Category (Passt 7 Days)
As of 14 Aug 2022     Source: CoinGecko.com, Crypto.com Research
Crypto.com Market Indices
Source: Crypto.com

News Highlights

Catalyst Calendar

Economic Events
Blockchain Launch and Upgrades (Estimated)
Crypto Conferences

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Research and Insights Team


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