Market Wrap: Bitcoin Tops $11.1K; Ether Traders Like $400 Options

Oct 9, 2020 at 20:31 UTC.Bitcoin is making gains Friday while ether options traders on the Deribit exchange love $400 strikes.

Bitcoin trading around $10,050 as of 20:00 UTC. Gaining 1.4% over the previous 24 hours.

The last time bitcoin hit Friday's $11,111 price level was back on Sept. 19.

Positive news, combined with short-oriented trader liquidations in the derivatives market, have helped push bitcoin higher.

"I'm happy to see bitcoin break $11,000," said Henrik Kugelberg, a Sweden-based over-the-counter trader.

Kugelberg said many traders will swap poorly performing alternative cryptocurrencies, or altcoins, for more bitcoin, but that trend won't send price skyrocketing.

Ether was up Friday trading around $364 and climbing 3.4% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC.Ether options traders on Deribit, one of the largest crypto venues in terms of daily volume, prefer betting at the $400 price point.

According to Deribit data aggregated from Genesis Volility, options traders currently have over 75,741 ETH options on a $400 strike price, tops on the exchange.

"The $400 price point has become an inflection point for ETH recently," he told CoinDesk.

Conversely, Magadini sees lots of puts on $200, although that price level hasn't been touched on the ether spot market since way back in May. He added that "$200 is less logical as $250 is a more tested level, but for whatever reason the market likes being short $200 puts more.