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Bitcoin hit a new all-time high near $81,000 and futures premiums soared, a clear sign that investors believe the record for the world’s largest cryptocurrency is poised to generate even more gains following the US elections which saw a wave of pro-crypto. candidates win elections.
Open interest in Bitcoin price surpassing $90,000 has risen to over $2.8 billion on popular derivatives exchange Deribit, one of the few native crypto platforms offering futures trading . Deribit encompasses most of the offshore options market.
“The options market strongly favors continued momentum. Calls are trading at a premium to puts, and open interest for out-of-the-money calls has increased,” said Vetle Lunde, head of research at K33 Research, at CNBC.
A call option gives the buyer the right to purchase shares of an underlying asset at a certain price for a specified period of time. Buying a call option means betting that the price of the asset will increase. Buying a put option means betting that the price of the asset will fall.
The CME derivatives exchange offers Bitcoin futures and is a popular way for U.S. institutions to bet on the future price of Bitcoin. Velde told CNBC that on Friday, CME premiums for ether and bitcoin averaged 14.5% and 14%, respectively. Before the election, Velde said those bonuses stood at 7% and had spent most of the last half-year sitting slightly below 10%.
“The recent rise is a significant deviation upward, underscoring the bullish flows of recent times,” he added, noting that yields more or less stabilized well into double digits after the elections became clear .
“Alongside the growth in leverage, we have seen the first significant example of growth in offshore derivatives returns, indicating that this move is being driven by determined risk takers positioning themselves for a further upside potential,” Velde said.
The early beginnings of Bitcoin’s rise coincided with substantial growth in open interest in perpetual swaps, or contracts that allow buyers to speculate on the direction they think prices are going without a set expiration date.
But liquidity in crypto markets on weekends is generally lower than on weekdays, because neither CME futures nor ETFs are open for trading, so movements therefore tend to react in a manner excessive and to retrace considerably once these markets reopen, according to Velde.
President-elect Donald Trump promised during the election campaign to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.” His multiple commitments to the crypto community include launching a national crypto stockpile with the more than $16 billion in bitcoin the U.S. government has amassed through asset seizures, as well as reducing interest rates. Easing monetary policy is usually accompanied by a surge in cryptocurrency prices, as it makes borrowing money cheaper.
The Federal Reserve, which guides the nation’s monetary policy, sets the benchmark rate. By design, it also operates independently of the White House. On Thursday, the Fed approved its second straight interest rate cut.
Following the election results and the Fed’s unanimous vote to cut the benchmark rate further, the crypto market overall surged over the weekend. Ether eclipsed bitcoin’s rise, up 30% over the past seven days, and by Solana Market capitalization surpassed $100 billion on Sunday.
The total market capitalization of all spot bitcoin ETFs is now over $80 billion, and in the last three trading days alone, spot funds have collectively added $2.3 billion.
Within fintech, crypto-related companies were among the top performers, after candidates funded by the crypto industry won races up and down the ballot.
Shares of Coinbase jumped 48% for the week, their strongest performance since January 2023. Coinbase was one of the top corporate donors of the election cycle, giving more than $75 million to Fairshake and its affiliated PACs, including a new $25 million pledge to support the pro-crypto super PAC in the 2026 midterms.
Trump has vowed to oust SEC Chairman Gary Gensler, potentially boding well for companies like Coinbase that are fighting the regulator in court over alleged securities violations.
“Tuesday night was certainly a big night for crypto and for crypto voters,” Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s chief legal officer, said in an interview. “We are going to have the most pro-crypto convention ever, and Coinbase played a role in all of this.”
Robinhood, which allows users to buy and sell a number of digital currencies, was up 27% for the week. The online brokerage received a Wells Notice from the SEC in May, a decision that often precedes formal charges.
Robinhood’s chief executive for its crypto unit told CNBC that Robinhood’s goal is to be able to work within the administration.
“If you think about crypto, it’s very fast paced. It’s complicated, it was created by engineers, for engineers,” said Johann Kerbrat, vice president and general manager of Robinhood Crypto. “We want to help policymakers understand this and put the right protections in place for customers.”
