Bitcoin Traders Target $20K Bitcoin Strike as Deep Out of the Money Options Gain Traction

Deep out-of-the-money (OTM) bitcoin BTC$89,954.33 put options are lighting up in longer-dated expiries, as traders pick up cheap lottery tickets for potential moonshot payoffs if BTC swings wild.

On leading crypto options exchange Deribit, the $20,000 strike put is the second most popular among the June 2026 expiry options, boasting a notional open interest of over $191 million.

Notional open interest is the dollar value of the number of active contracts. Put options at strikes below the going market rate of BTC are said to be OTM. These OTM puts tend to be cheaper than those near or above the spot price of BTC.

The June expiry also sees significant activity in other OTM puts at $30,000, $40,000, $60,000, and $75,000 strikes.

Activity in deep OTM puts is typically read as traders bracing for a price crash. But that's not necessarily the case here, as the exchange has also seen activity on higher-strike calls above $200,000.

Taken together, these flows represent a bullish view on long-dated volatility at low cost rather than a bet on price direction, according to Deribit's Global Head of Retail Sidrah Fariq. Think of it as cheap lottery tickets on a potential volatility explosion over the next six months.

"There is about 2,117 open interest on the $20K bitcoin put for the June expiry. We also saw some big trades in the $30,000 put and $230,000 call strikes. The combination of these far out of the money options does not suggest directional trading, but rather deep wing trades that professionals use to trade long-dated volatility cheaply and adjust tail risk in their books," Fariq told CoinDesk.

She explained that it's essentially volatility positioning, not price positioning, because the $20,000 put or the $230,000 call are simply too far from the spot price to be a purely protective hedge. As of writing, BTC changed hands near $90,500, according to CoinDesk data.

Those holding both OTM calls and puts could score asymmetric payoffs from extreme volatility or wild price swings in either direction. But if markets stay flat, these options quickly lose value.

Options are derivative contracts that give the purchaser the right to buy or sell the underlying asset at a predetermined price at a later date. A put option provides the right to sell and represents a bearish bet on the market. A call offers the right to buy.

The crypto options market, including the one tied to BlackRock's IBIT ETF, has evolved into a sophisticated arena where institutions and whales engage in three-dimensional chess, managing risk and profiting from price direction, time decay, and volatility swings.

Broadly speaking, the options market mood appears bearish, as BTC puts continue to trade at a premium to calls across all tenors, according to Amberdata's options risk reversals. This is at least partly due to persistent call overwriting, a strategy aimed at boosting yield on top of spot market holdings.