At the highly anticipated Bitcoin 2024 Summit on Sunday, U.S. presidential candidate Trump delivered a keynote speech as the marquee guest. Before the speech began, the market had already capitalized on the anticipated positive news, pushing Bitcoin’s price to a high of $69,500. However, during the speech, it became clear that Trump was unlikely to announce the addition of BTC to the U.S. strategic reserves. Instead, his speech resembled more of a presidential campaign rally. As a result, the market quickly retraced its previous gains due to unmet expectations, causing a brief downturn. The options market also heavily shorted volatility during the conference, leading to a steep decline in the Vol Curve.
Source: TradingView
Source: SignalPlus, ATM Vol
Although the market’s biggest hope, the strategic reserve plan, did not materialize, Trump continued his pro-crypto rhetoric, shouting slogans like “Never sell your Bitcoin!” He also mentioned that firing the current SEC chairman, Gary Gensler, would be his first order of business upon taking office, stating, “On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler,” and even repeated it twice. Bullish sentiment began to build last night, with intraday volatility reaching ~3% and Bitcoin pushing towards the $70,000 mark, hitting multi-week highs. Front-end implied volatility and Vol Skew also rose along with the price. The overall volatility level of BTC returned to over 55%, with Vol Skew hovering around 3%.
Additionally, there are other notable points on BTC’s IV curve. First, the volatility level post-year-end is generally suppressed, with the term structure flattening at the pivot of 27SEP24. Second, the expiration dates of AUG2 and NOV8 imply a forward IV of around 63% and 67.5%, significantly higher than other terms.
Source: Deribit （As of 29 JUL 8: 00 UTC）
Source: SignalPlus, 25 dRR
Data Source: Deribit, Overall Distribution of ETH Trading
Data Source: Deribit, Overall Distribution of BTC Trading
Source: Deribit Block Trade
Source: Deribit Block Trade
