The Scoop: Open interest surges ahead of historic election for crypto
2024-11-02

This column was co-written by Frank Chaparro, director of special projects at The Block, and Laura Vidiella of MNNC Group. The views expressed in this column are their own and do not reflect the opinions of their employers.
We’re less than a week out from the election, and while most of you are glued to the polls, I’m fixated on something else: crypto derivatives. Maybe I’m weird like that, but the recent action in BTC options has me hooked. The numbers we’re seeing are, as Josh Lim might say, truly "size."
Take CME Bitcoin options — Tuesday, Oct. 29 saw one of the platform’s biggest trades ever. We’re talking 3,050 BTC contracts on the Nov. 29 85,000 strike calls. At the time, this trade moved $4.6 million in premium, $173,000 in vega and packed a whopping $42 million in delta, with the total notional hitting around $350 million. To put this in context, these numbers are huge — even compared to Deribit’s standards.
Here’s where it gets spicy: the breakeven for these positions hovers around $79,300, meaning BTC would need to jump 16% from current levels for this play to be profitable. If you’ve seen the payout profile, you know it’s not for the faint of heart.
Adding to the excitement, we’re seeing record-high futures open interest. BTC, ETH, and SOL futures just smashed through the $50 billion mark in open interest, as Austin Reed from FalconX pointed out. It’s a major signal of the market’s confidence, or at least its thrill-seeking attitude ahead of a potentially historic election.
And speaking of the election — it turns out crypto has become a pivotal issue for many holders. A new survey shows that over 20% of crypto investors identify as “single-issue voters,” meaning they’re casting ballots with crypto regulation as their top priority. The poll, which surveyed 1,000 likely voters between Oct. 17 and Oct. 22, also included an oversample of 247 independents. With a margin of error of 3.5%, the results suggest that millions in the crypto community see the election as make-or-break for their portfolios. Even Paradigm’s Justin Slaughter admitted, “This number was higher than I expected,” which tells us we’re seeing something unique.
The implications here are huge — not just for Nov. 5 but for the entire regulatory landscape as crypto inches into mainstream politics. It’s one thing for financial institutions to enter the space; it’s another for crypto to become a national election issue.
The Block’s Frank Chaparro serves up the latest headlines, charts, trends, and views on crypto and DeFi from around The Block, Twitter, and The Scoop pod. Subscribe to The Scoop newsletter, which hits inboxes on Tuesday and Friday mornings.
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