ETH Options Skew Defensive as Spot Drifts Lower; SOL and XRP Funding Flip Negative

Ether options are leaning defensive heading into Sunday afternoon, with BlackRock's ETHA posting a 1.88 put/call volume ratio against the Friday close snapshot even as spot ETH trades $2,374, down 1.2% on the session. The positioning tilt comes as spot bitcoin holds $81,168 and perpetual funding on SOL and XRP flips negative, pointing to selective de-risking in alt exposure rather than a broad sentiment reset.

Market Pulse

Spot majors trade lower across the board in a tight weekend tape. Bitcoin changes hands at $81,168, -0.4% ↓ over 24 hours with a 1.55% session range. Ether sits at $2,374, -1.2% ↓, while SOL at $102.02 and XRP at $1.2710 are down -1.4% and -1.8% respectively. Binance perpetual funding paints a split tape: BTC and ETH funding sits mildly positive at an annualized +6.4% and +3.9%, but SOL has flipped to -7.5% annualized and XRP to -8.4%. Shorts are paying to be long bitcoin and ether; longs are paying to be short the two major alts.

Options Positioning

The clearest institutional tell comes from the Friday-close options snapshots, per InflowScan data. ETHA's P/C volume ratio of 1.88 is the most defensive print in the complex, though P/C open interest at 0.644 suggests the hedging is tactical rather than structural. Top call open interest clusters at the $20 and $22 strikes — both roughly 60% below Friday's $54.71 close and effectively deep-ITM legacy positioning. Put concentration at $10 and $5 is far out-of-the-money tail protection.

IBIT shows a similar split: P/C volume at 1.42 against P/C OI of 0.75, with the largest call wall at $50 (8.4% above Friday's $46.14 close) and a 165,900-contract put block at $20 (56.7% below) that reads as deep-OTM crash hedging rather than directional conviction. FBTC and ARKB skew call-heavy by volume (P/C 0.43 and 0.94), with FBTC's $110 and $100 call strikes 55% and 41% above Friday's close marking upside speculative interest. XRPC remains the most call-dominated book in the complex at a 0.15 P/C volume ratio, with 30-day IV at 66.4% — the highest in the group.

Narrative

The tape is being shaped by two overlapping stories. Spot bitcoin ETFs have shed close to $1 billion over the past two weeks per media reports, and that drawdown is now being referenced alongside softer price action to frame October as a disappointment versus seasonal expectations. The second thread is single-asset: XRP and SOL ETF products are being described as structurally challenged relative to the BTC and ETH complex, a framing consistent with the negative funding rates on both assets. Strategy's Michael Saylor flagged additional bitcoin purchases against the firm's 848,250 BTC position, a familiar supply-side anchor but one that has not translated into intraday bid.

Afternoon Watch

Monday Asia open — first look at whether the SOL and XRP funding reset carries into regional session flows.
Stablecoin supply drift — USDC off $120.8M and USDT off $58.8M on the day per InflowScan data; a continued contraction into Monday would be historically associated with reduced dry powder rotating into spot.
No scheduled US macro prints on a Sunday session; weekend tape typically defers to Monday's pre-market setup.