Bitcoin Grinds Higher to $62,870 as IBIT Options Show Call-Heavy Tilt; ETHA Puts Concentrate at $10 Strike

Bitcoin traded up 0.95% to $62,870 by midday Thursday as options positioning in the largest spot bitcoin ETF tilted toward calls, with BlackRock's IBIT registering a put/call volume ratio of 0.72 and open interest concentrated at the $45 and $40 call strikes. Ether lagged, slipping 0.22% to $1,740, while funding rates across major perpetual venues remained modestly positive.

Market Pulse

Bitcoin led the majors Thursday morning, climbing 0.95% to $62,870 with a 2.01% intraday range. Ether held the $1,740 handle after a 0.22% slip, and SOL traded flat-to-lower at $77.64 (-0.24%). XRP was essentially unchanged at $1.09. Binance perpetual funding sat at +0.0049% per 8h for BTC (annualized ~5.4%) and +0.0027% for ETH — long-tilted but nowhere near stretched. SOL funding printed near-zero at +0.0002%, consistent with a market that has bled directional conviction on the altcoin book.

Options Positioning

The clearest signal on the tape sits in bitcoin ETF options. IBIT (underlying $35.24) registered a put/call volume ratio of 0.72 and OI ratio of 0.74, with call open interest stacked at the $45 (80.6k contracts) and $40 strikes — well above spot. FBTC printed a more extreme call skew, with P/C volume at just 0.088 and the top call strike at $100 against a $54.17 underlying, though put OI at the $40 strike (16.8k) suggests some downside hedging remains in place. On the ether side, ETHA put open interest concentrated heavily at the $10 strike (70.3k contracts) against a $13.14 underlying — consistent with protective positioning rather than directional bearishness. IV30 sits at 38.9% for IBIT/FBTC versus 52.3% for ETHA, pointing to a persistent vol premium for ether exposure.

Narrative

Two institutional-adoption threads dominate the morning wire. JPMorgan's tokenized Ethereum fund has grown 250% in a month to $695M, and Grayscale cut its Ethereum Mini Trust fee to 0.15% — the latest salvo in an issuer fee war that has compressed ETH product economics faster than BTC. Separately, MARA agreed to acquire a large powered land plot in Texas, extending the miner-as-infrastructure-play thesis. Sentiment reads neutral across the board; no headline is moving spot.

Afternoon Watch

USDT supply added $328M over the past 24 hours per InflowScan data — the largest single-day mint in the current cycle and worth tracking into the close as a capital-staging signal.
ETHA's $10-strike put concentration is a stress-test level; a sustained move in the underlying toward that strike has historically been associated with elevated dealer gamma activity.
No scheduled US macro prints this afternoon — market in low-conviction drift until settled flow data lands overnight.