Reading BTC and ETH Futures, Funding, and Options Skew

Summary

This weekly report summarizes crypto derivatives conditions for Bitcoin and Ether through futures yields, perpetual swap funding, at-the-money implied volatility, and options risk reversals. It describes a pullback and recovery in spot prices alongside short-dated volatility smiles skewed toward out-of-the-money puts. Longer-dated Bitcoin smiles remain tilted toward calls. Ether is described as outperforming Bitcoin in spot, with lower futures basis and funding that is sometimes negative, even as its short-dated options skew resembles Bitcoin’s.

The report’s evidence is a snapshot of market metrics and volatility surfaces across exchanges and expiries, including constant-maturity and listed-expiry comparisons. It notes changes in the term structure and relative pricing between assets, but the supplied text contains no underlying charts or detailed time series to independently assess those claims. These measures describe market positioning and pricing at the stated observation point; they do not establish future direction or a reliable trading signal.

Key ideas

• Short-dated BTC and ETH volatility smiles show a skew toward out-of-the-money puts.
• Longer-dated BTC options retain a call-tilted skew in the report’s snapshot.
• ETH’s stronger spot performance is accompanied by lower futures basis and occasionally negative funding.
• Futures yields, funding, implied volatility, and risk reversals offer complementary views of derivatives markets.
• The snapshot describes current pricing conditions and does not prove future price direction.

Tags

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.