$5 Billion Bitcoin Options Cluster Signals Rally
On Deribit, the leading crypto options exchange, strong bullish positions formed at the $70,000 and $72,000 levels, but optimism has begun to wane due to uncertainty over the US CLARITY Act.
On Deribit, the leading crypto options exchange, strong bullish positions formed at the $70,000 and $72,000 levels, but optimism has begun to wane due to uncertainty over the US CLARITY Act.
On Deribit, the world's leading Bitcoin options exchange, a highly optimistic cluster of positions worth nearly $5 billion has formed, concentrated at two specific strike prices: $70,000 and $72,000. According to data published by CoinDesk on July 24, 2026, these two levels together account for about 18% of the total open interest (the total value of active contracts) of BTC options on Deribit, which stands at $28 billion.
The ratio of call to put options at these levels strongly speaks to optimism. According to data from analytics platform Laevitas, at the $70,000 strike price, roughly 39,000 call contracts are active compared to only 3,800 put contracts. At the $72,000 level, the ratio is even more pronounced: 37,900 calls versus just 1,200 puts. Call options give the buyer the right to buy Bitcoin at a predetermined price until a certain date and are used as a bet on price increases, while put options give the right to sell and are used to bet on a decline or hedge against a fall.
Laevitas identified a large structure known as a bull call spread, a strategy built by buying a call option at $70,000 and simultaneously selling a call option at $72,000. This strategy yields profit if Bitcoin's price rises to the $72,000 level but caps the maximum return. "The structure constitutes approximately 49% and 50% of the total open interest in call options at the $70,000 and $72,000 strike prices," Laevitas states. Additionally, one or more traders purchased a large number of call options at $70,000, paying a premium of $3.4 million for exposure to potential upside.
Jimmy Yang, co-founder of Orbit Markets, an institutional digital asset liquidity provider, explained the background of these positions. "Earlier this month, we saw decent demand for BTC call options in the higher range, with the $70,000 and $72,000 strike prices expiring on July 31 being particularly popular. Much of this positioning was driven by expectations that the CLARITY Act could be passed before the end of the month," Yang told CoinDesk. The CLARITY Act is a US legislative proposal aimed at regulating the cryptocurrency market and delineating the jurisdictions of the SEC and CFTC.
However, Yang warned that expectations have shifted in the last 24 hours. "The market has tempered those expectations, leading to the unwinding of some of those bullish bets," he added. According to data from prediction platform Polymarket, the probability that the CLARITY Act will be signed into law this year fell from 51% at the start of the week to 38% as of July 24. The decline followed a statement by John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, who did not expect the Senate to vote on the bill before the August recess.
At the time of the article's publication on CoinDesk on July 24, 2026, Bitcoin (BTC) was trading around $64,900. The concentration of positions at the $70,000 and $72,000 levels means that if these bets were to pay off, the price would need to rise by approximately 8-11% from current levels. Despite the recent weakening of legislative optimism, the overall picture in the options market remains bullish, which analytical sources interpret as a signal that institutional and professional traders still expect positive movement in Bitcoin's price in the coming weeks.
