Bitcoin Holds $75,800 as IBIT Put Volume Ticks Up; XRP Extends Slide on Fresh Weakness

Bitcoin traded at $75,796 through midday Wednesday, up 0.2% over 24 hours, but options positioning in BlackRock's IBIT showed a put/call volume ratio of 1.06 — a defensive tilt at odds with the muted spot tape. XRP led decliners at -1.4%, extending a slide flagged in wire coverage of broader crypto weakness.

Market Pulse

Spot majors drifted in tight ranges through the New York morning. BTC held $75,796 with a session range of 1.22%, ETH softened 0.2% to $2,392, and SOL added 0.3% to $97.12. XRP was the standout laggard at $1.2657, down 1.4% on the day with a 3.77% intraday range — the widest of the majors. Funding rates skewed marginally positive across the board, with BTC perpetuals annualizing near +5.8% and ETH closer to +2.3%, according to Binance perpetual funding. That posture is consistent with modest long-carry rather than aggressive directional positioning.

Options Positioning

The most notable signal sits in IBIT, where put/call volume ran 1.06 against a put/call open interest of 0.71 on the September 16 snapshot, with the ETF trading $42.85. Top put open interest concentrates at the $20 strike (165,855 contracts, 53% below live) — deep tail hedging — while the $40 put (53,482 contracts, 6.6% below live) sits closer to spot and is the more actionable defensive line. Top call open interest clusters at $45 (5% above), $47 and $48. IV30d prints 39.5%.

ETHA tells a different story: put/call volume of 0.63 and P/C OI of 0.57 lean constructive, with call open interest at $21 (16.5% above the $18.02 live price) suggesting upside strike demand. FBTC shows P/C volume of 0.44 — the most call-heavy of the BTC products — with top call OI at the $100 strike, far above the $65.84 live price and consistent with longer-dated upside positioning rather than near-term conviction.

Narrative

Wire coverage through the morning centered on the aftermath of a failed Senate Clarity Act vote, with reporting flagging a $450M bitcoin ETF exit led by Fidelity — the worst single-day for spot bitcoin ETFs since June. That backdrop helps explain the defensive IBIT put positioning even as spot BTC holds. Separate coverage of XRP's 10% weekly slide and ETH price-prediction pieces questioning $2,400 support reinforce the softer alt-coin tape visible in the intraday prints.

Afternoon Watch

Any follow-through on the reported ETF exit story — tomorrow's Pre-Market brief will carry the settled figures.
ETH's $2,400 handle: a sustained loss would historically be associated with wider alt-coin softness.
Stablecoin supply: USDC shed -$715M ↓ over 24 hours per InflowScan data — worth monitoring for dry-powder direction into the afternoon session.