Crypto options and futures metrics provided by Deribit

Crypto options and futures metrics provide critical insights into market sentiment, positioning, volatility, and institutional vs. retail behavior. Here's a breakdown of the key metrics you should track:

1. Futures Metrics

Open Interest (OI)
Total number of open futures contracts.
Interpretation:

• Rising OI = more market participation, possible trend continuation.
• Falling OI = unwinding positions, potential trend reversal.

2. Funding Rate

• Periodic payments between long and short traders in perpetual swaps.

Interpretation:

• Positive = longs paying shorts → bullish bias.
• Negative = shorts paying longs → bearish bias.

3. Basis (Spot vs. Futures Price)

• Futures price − Spot price.

Interpretation:

• Large premium → strong bullish sentiment.
• Discount → bearish sentiment or demand for hedging.

4. Liquidations

• Forced closures due to margin calls.

Interpretation:

• Spikes = high volatility zones.
• Can trigger cascades, especially in over-leveraged markets.

Options Metrics

1. Open Interest (by strike and expiry)

• Shows where large positions are clustered.

Interpretation:

• High OI at specific strikes = potential magnet price zones (e.g., max pain).

2. Implied Volatility (IV)

• Market's expectation of future volatility.

Interpretation:

• High IV = expensive options → likely events or uncertainty.
• Low IV = complacency or stable markets.

3. Put/Call Ratio

• Ratio of put options to call options.
• Interpretation:
• <1 = bullish sentiment.
• >1 = bearish sentiment.

4. Skew (25 delta risk reversal)

• Difference in IV between calls and puts of the same delta.

Interpretation:

• Positive skew = call bias.
• Negative skew = put bias.

5. Max Pain

• Strike price at which the most options expire worthless.

Interpretation:

• Often used to predict price pinning around expirations.

Tools to Track Metrics

• Deribit, OKX, Binance – Options/Futures dashboards.
• Coinglass, Laevitas, The Block – Aggregated OI, funding, liquidations.
• Skew, Genesis Volatility – Advanced volatility and skew analytics.