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Traders purchased 20,000 Bitcoin call options with a strike price of $70,000 expiring on July 31, while simultaneously selling an equal number of call options with a strike price of $72,000.
Bitcoin traded near $64,600 after recovering from below $58,000 in early July, while large options positions pointed to a possible move to $72,000 ahead of the Federal Reserve's upcoming interest rate decision, CoinDesk reports.
Bitcoin was up 1.15% at $64,717.2 as of 12:02 PM. Traders purchased 20,000 Bitcoin call options with a strike price of $70,000 expiring on July 31, while simultaneously selling an equal number of call options with a strike price of $72,000. The bullish call spreads represented a notional value of approximately $2.5 billion.
This strategy benefits from a moderate rally above $70,000 but limits profits once Bitcoin reaches $72,000. The size and structure of the trades suggest institutional, rather than retail, positioning.
The options expire two days after the Fed's decision on July 29. Futures markets are pricing in a 75% to 80% chance of rates remaining at 3.5% to 3.75% after June inflation data showed easing price pressures. Renewed hostility between the US and Iran, as well as rising oil prices, could complicate this forecast, reigniting inflation concerns.
Beyond price dynamics, Strategy (NASDAQ:MSTR) Chairman Michael Saylor warned that Bitcoin Improvement Proposal 110 could threaten network neutrality, according to RootData.
BIP 110 proposes a one-year soft fork that limits transactions with large amounts of data. It would limit OP_RETURN outputs to 83 bytes and set a limit on certain payloads of 256 bytes, while exempting outputs created before activation.
Proponents argue that the limits will reduce arbitrary data storage and reduce the burden on node operators. Saylor stated that Bitcoin's consensus rules should not dictate which otherwise valid transactions deserve access to the block space. Miner support remains near zero—well below the proposal activation threshold of 1,109 out of 2,016 mined blocks. Saylor and Blockstream co-founder Adam Back warned that enforcing controversial rules without widespread support could split the network.
Mining concentration is a related governance issue. Four pools controlled over 70% of Bitcoin's hashrate, according to a June 23 snapshot cited by CryptoSlate.
Foundry Digital accounted for 31%, followed by AntPool with 18%, ViaBTC with 13%, and F2Pool with 10%. A separate seven-day snapshot, published on July 16, placed Foundry at 27%, while F2Pool and AntPool each held 17.2%. Bitcoin's Nakamoto Ratio was three in June, meaning only three pools were needed to exceed half of all blocks mined by the network.
Crypto Market Today: Altcoins Mostly Steady Amid Sluggish Sunday Trading
In the broader crypto market, most altcoins rose amid sluggish Sunday trading.
The second-largest crypto asset by market cap, Ether, gained 1.53% on the day, while XRP rose 1.19%.
Cardano gained 0.12%, while BNB and Solana rose 0.07% and 1.91%, respectively.
Among memecoins, Dogecoin rose 0.82%, while $TRUMP fell 1.80%.