🚨 BTC’s $97K RALLY LOOKED BULLISH OPTIONS SAY “NOT SO FAST”

Bitcoin’s sprint toward $97,000 lit up the options market… but under the surface, the move lacked real conviction.

Glassnode flagged a key split: short-term call buying surged, yet longer-dated risk pricing stayed defensive. Translation? Traders played the bounce they didn’t fully believe in it.

📈 BTC jumped about 8% in a few days

📉 1-week 25-delta skew flipped toward neutral

Sounds bullish… until you zoom out.

⚠️ Short-dated call demand often = tactical trades, not long-term confidence.

Options flow backed that up:

📊 Put/Call ratio dropped from 1 → 0.4

That’s heavy call activity — but mostly front-end, not extended positioning.

Now here’s where it gets interesting 👇

Longer expiries barely moved.

🗓 1-month skew shifted only slightly, still pricing downside risk

🗓 3-month skew barely budged and stayed firmly in put territory

So while traders chased short-term upside, the broader market kept hedging for downside.

That’s the difference between flow and true risk repricing.

And volatility told the same story.

📉 As BTC rallied, implied volatility was SOLD, not bought

🎯 Gamma sellers used the pump to harvest premium

That’s not what strong, sustainable breakouts look like. Real breakouts usually see volatility bid aggressively, not compressed.

This combo short-term calls + vol selling — signals positioning, not a regime shift.

It also leaves price vulnerable once those short-dated bets expire.

🧠 What would confirm a stronger breakout?

✅ Spot pushing key resistance

✅ Skew lifting across ALL maturities

✅ Volatility getting bid, not crushed

Until then, rallies may be squeezes not liftoffs.