Bitcoin (BTC) traders kicked off 2026 with optimism, actively purchasing options that anticipate the cryptocurrency’s price surging into six-figure territory.
Since at least last Friday, there has been a significant rise in investor interest for the $100,000 strike call option expiring in January on Deribit—the largest crypto options exchange globally by both volume and open interest.
A call option grants its buyer the right, without obligation, to acquire the underlying asset at a set price before or on a specified date. The $100,000 call reflects speculation that Bitcoin’s value will climb above this threshold prior to contract expiration.
“Market activity continues to be driven mainly by rollovers,” noted Jasper De Maere, desk strategist at Wintermute. “However, we’ve observed a clear surge in demand around the January 30th $100k calls.”
Within just 24 hours, open contracts for this particular option increased by 420 BTC according to Amberdata. This translates into an additional notional open interest of approximately $38.8 million—leading all January calls and all Deribit expiries overall—where each contract corresponds to one Bitcoin.
The total notional open interest recently reached about $1.45 billion across all strikes and expirations on Deribit; notably, contracts expiring in January accounted for roughly $828 million of that figure as reported by Deribit Metrics.
This bullish positioning echoes much of 2025’s sentiment when traders eagerly targeted call options with strike prices ranging from $100k up to $140k.
According to QCP Capital analysts, demand for these optimistic bets could intensify if Bitcoin’s price sustains momentum beyond the current resistance near $94,000. The digital asset has gained roughly 5% during the first five days of this year and briefly surpassed $93k early Monday morning.
“Following December’s expiry events,” QCP Capital explained last week, “perpetual funding rates on BTC futures via Deribit have surged past 30%, indicating dealers are now positioned short gamma on upside moves.” They added that this pattern became apparent as spot prices broke through the $90k level—prompting hedging flows toward perpetual swaps and near-term calls.”
“If prices hold above $94k consistently,” they concluded, “this effect is likely to strengthen further.”