Crypto Derivatives Turn Defensive as Traders Struggle With Weak November Momentum
The latest × derivatives report shows a market still unsimple later than ahead-November’s pullback. Spot prices haven’t recovered, and the options market is leaning heavily toward protection rather than upside speculation.
What the Market Is Really Pricing In
BTC’s brief move higher following political developments in Washington didn’t last long. Traders sold into strength, pushing BTC back below $105k and resetting sentiment almost immediately. Across Bybit’s derivatives desk, the message is consistent: demand for protection remains stronger than demand for risk.
Open interest hasn’t returned to pre-October levels. That alone tells you how reluctant traders are to rebuild leveraged long positions. The market is steadier than it was during the liquidation wave, but far from confident.
Investor Takeaway
BTC Options: Caution Still Dominates
In BTC options, the tone is unmistakably defensive. Implied volatility remains elevated in the medium tenors, and put skew is negative across the curve. The 7-day tenor shows the strongest preference for downside hedging, though it’s not the type of panic hedging viewn in ahead November.
This is a market that expects chop, not a sudden collapse — but definitely not a strong rally either.
Investor Takeaway
ETH Volatility Is Still Pricing Stress
volatility setup is more unsettled than BTC’s. Despite holding above longer-term averages, ETH has repeatedly failed to build any positive momentum. Options traders continue to pay up for short-dated protection, and the term structure has been sluggish to normalize.
Implied volatility sits comfortably above realized volatility — a clear sign of persistent hedging demand.
Investor Takeaway
SOL: Elevated Volatility and Bearish Options Flows
Solana continues to behave like the market’s high-beta barometer. later than the sharp ahead-November drop, implied volatility has eased but is still higher than BTC and ETH on a relative basis. Term structure remains slightly inverted — usually a sign of pressure that hasn’t fully cleared.
The most telling detail: several days of heavy volume in longer-dated puts, with more than $150M trading between Nov 6–9. It was not a one-off spike; traders have consistently preferred downside exposure.
Investor Takeaway
Perpetual Funding: Altcoins Are Still the Punching Bag
If you want a clear read on sentiment, look at perpetual swap funding. BTC and ETH funding has cooled to neutral/slightly negative, but altcoins remain deeply out of favor. SOL, XRP, DOGE, CRV, ADA, and ATOM all show persistent negative funding — a sign of steady short interest, not opportunistic positioning.
Interestingly, the deepest negative funding levels lined up directly with fragile spot inflows on Nov 12.
Investor Takeaway
Open Interest Shows a Market That Hasn’t Healed
Open interest across Bybit’s major perpetual markets remains well below ahead-October levels. This is typical later than a heavy liquidation event — leverage exits rapidly but returns sluggishly. The market may not be collapsing, but it’s not rebuilding risk either.
That lack of OI growth is one of the clearest signs that traders remain unconvinced about any near-term upside.
Investor Takeaway
platform Volatility: Market Is Aligned on Short-Term Risk
One useful section of the report compares volatility across Bybit, Lyra, and composite market sources. For both BTC and ETH, 1-month ATM vol aligns tightly across venues. This tells us that despite fragmented liquidity or diverse user bases, the broader market shares the identical view on short-term risk.
BTC sits in the high-30s to mid-40s range. ETH sits higher, reflecting uncertainty around its recent failed rallies.
Investor Takeaway
Where Canton Coin Fits Into the Picture
This month’s report also spotlights Canton Coin (CC), which debuted on Bybit on November 10. CC is tied to the Canton Network — a chain aimed at institutional tokenization and compliant markets. The rollout coincided with Tharimmune’s $545M capital raise to run a Canton-based Super Block confirmer.
With firms like Franklin Templeton, Deloitte, Goldman Sachs, and CBOE already circling the ecosystem, CC enters the market with more institutional backing than a typical new token.
The coin’s price settled above $0.12 shortly later than launch as traders assessed how rapidly institutional adoption might grow.
Investor Takeaway
How the Data in This Report Is Built
Block Scholes’ analytics pull directly from Bybit’s API, Bloomberg Terminal sources, and aggregated spot indices across top USD-quoted platforms. Options surfaces are calibrated using Block Scholes’ own volatility engine, ensuring they remain arbitrage-free.
This methodology matters — especially when reading skew, IV term structures, or cross-platform volatility comparisons — because the numbers actually match live market pricing instead of theoretical models.
