Bitcoin Holds $71,755 as ETHA Options Flow Turns Defensive; Funding Rates Refuse to Capitulate

Spot bitcoin traded at $71,755 at midday Thursday, down 3.1% over 24 hours, with ether at $2,007 and testing a psychological level that has anchored two sessions of chart commentary. The more revealing signal sits in the options tape: BlackRock's ETHA logged a put/call volume ratio of 1.35 on the latest snapshot, pointing to defensive repositioning even as Binance perpetual funding on ether held positive at roughly +6.5% annualized.

Market Pulse

The majors moved lower in near-lockstep. Bitcoin trades at $71,755 (-3.1% ↓) with a 3.34% intraday range; ether at $2,007 (-2.4% ↓), range 3.36%; SOL at $81.43 (-2.3% ↓); XRP at $1.0241 (-2.7% ↓). Despite the drawdown, Binance perpetual funding has refused to flip negative on the three largest majors — BTC runs +10.6% annualized, ETH +6.5%, XRP +6.4%. SOL funding sits effectively flat at -0.7% annualized. The posture is consistent with position trimming rather than a leveraged long flush.

Options Positioning

ETHA's volume skew is the standout. According to InflowScan data, the BlackRock ether product printed a 1.35 put/call volume ratio on the November 12 snapshot, with IV30d at 53.8% — well above IBIT's 37.7% — and heaviest put open interest sitting at the $10 strike (OI 32,052), roughly 78% below the live ETF price of $45.35. That strike concentration reads as tail-hedge inventory rather than a directional near-term bet. ETHE echoes the defensive tilt at a 1.38 P/C volume ratio.

IBIT tells the opposite story. P/C volume of 0.51 and P/C OI of 0.79 against a live price of $40.56 point to a call-tilted book, with the $50 strike holding 101,368 contracts — about 23% above spot. FBTC mirrors that setup: P/C volume 0.51, call concentration at $110 (OI 4,914) well above the live $62.33 price. BSOL's 0.22 P/C volume ratio and XRPC's 0.05 P/C open interest reading both skew call-heavy, though XRPC's absolute activity remains thin at 94 active contracts.

Narrative

Ether's slip toward $2,000 is dominating the tape, with multiple desks framing the handle as a line in the sand after the week's drawdown. BitMine's reported $6.3 billion mark-to-market loss has given the ether-weakness story a corporate anchor. Separately, Solana continues to accumulate tokenization headlines — a regulatory development and new activity in tokenized equities including NVDA — which helps explain why SOL funding is the only major sitting neutral rather than positive-and-paying. The crosscurrent: constructive structural news for SOL has not translated into spot outperformance intraday.

Afternoon Watch

ETH $2,000 handle — a sustained loss of the level has historically been associated with accelerated options-hedging flow; the ETHA put book at $10 is the inventory to watch.
Funding rate refresh into the 16:00 UTC print — whether BTC and ETH perpetuals hold positive through the afternoon speaks to whether leveraged positioning has reset.
Stablecoin supply trend — USDC contracted $394M and USDT $78M over 24h per InflowScan data, a mild dry-powder drawdown worth monitoring against tomorrow's settled ETF flow print.