Several large, deliberate trades hit the tape recently, building up this concentration of open interest at $70,000 and $72,000 levels. Laevitas identified a large bull call spread structure, involving buying the $70,000 call and simultaneously selling the $72,000 call.
The bull call spread, as the name suggests, bets on a moderate upswing in prices of the underlying asset, in this case, up to $72,000.
“The structure accounts for approximately 49% and 50% of total call open interest at the $70K and $72K strikes, respectively,” Laevitas noted.
Other notable trades included calendar spreads, a strategy used to profit from volatility changes in short- and near-term expiries.
Another trader or a group of traders bought a large number of calls at $70,000, paying $3.4 million in premium to gain upside exposure.
Jimmy Yang, co-founder of Orbit Markets, an institutional digital asset liquidity provider, pointed out similar trades, saying these have been driven by Clarity Act optimism.
“Earlier this month, we saw decent demand for BTC topside calls, with the 31 July $70,000 and $72,000 strikes being particularly popular. A lot of this positioning was driven by expectations that the CLARITY Act could be passed before the end of the month,” Yang said.