Cardano’s retail base has flipped bearish after weeks of drawdowns, setting up conditions where whales could step in.

Data from Santiment shows ADA’s bullish-to-bearish commentary ratio slumped to 1.5:1 this week — the lowest in five months. The sentiment dip coincided with a 5% rebound, suggesting traders who sold into frustration may have helped mark a local bottom.

Historically, ADA rallies have tended to begin when retail sentiment is weakest. Santiment flagged a similar setup in mid-August, when a 2:1 ratio aligned with a surge. Conversely, euphoric spikes — like the 12.8:1 ratio earlier this summer — have preceded sharp pullbacks.

Sentiment extremes matter because crypto markets are unusually sensitive to retail psychology. When optimism peaks, the crowd often buys into tops. When pessimism sets in, larger players use the selling pressure to accumulate. That pattern has been visible across multiple assets this year, including bitcoin and XRP.

For Cardano, the shift suggests whales could use current weakness to build positions, especially if retail continues to capitulate.

The crowd-versus-price divergence remains one of crypto’s more reliable short-term trading signals. For now, ADA’s impatient traders may have just handed longer-term investors their entry point.

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Traders on a decentralized platform are putting real money on Bitcoin’s path this month. According to a new Polymarket poll, 36% of bettors believe Bitcoin will top $125,000 by July 31.

Only 11% think it will clear $130,000, while just 3% and 1% back it reaching $140,000 and $150,000 respectively. As of Tuesday morning, Bitcoin hovered around $118,327, just shy of its all‑time high of $123,000 reached last week.

Polymarket Predictions Stir The Pot

Based on reports from Polymarket, the biggest chunk of wagers focuses on the $125,000 mark. That target sits about 6% above current levels, a gap many find doable given recent price swings.

Much smaller percentages are seeking more. Only 11% are putting their money on the $130,000 target. And beyond that—above $140,000—bets decline sharply, with just 3% and 1% supporting those higher amounts.

Source: Polymarket

The survey highlights cautious optimism: many believe there’s room for improvement, but few are forecasting a dramatic leap above the previous peak.

Price action supports their caution. Bitcoin’s recent climb followed a steady rise since mid‑2023, and it has spent much of July testing resistance near the $120,000 zone.

A push past $125,000 would be a fresh milestone. But if sellers step in, a pullback toward $110,000 is not out of the question.

ETHUSD trading at $3,649 on the 24-hour chart: TradingView

Doubling Down On Bitcoin

On July 21, Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. revealed it now holds more than $2 billion in Bitcoin assets. That haul makes up the bulk of its roughly $3 billion in cash and equivalents.

CEO Devin Nunes said the move secures “financial freedom” for the company and ties into a planned utility token for the Truth Social network.

Big buys like this often send ripples through the market, attracting media attention and nudging prices higher. They can also inspire other firms and funds to consider similar crypto stakes.

I just signed the landmark legislation passed today by House Republicans to strengthen American crypto innovation.

The CLARITY Act, GENIUS Act, and Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act deliver on President Trump’s vision to make crypto a core pillar of the U.S. economy and ensure… pic.twitter.com/rnJgq3KaV2

— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) July 17, 2025

US Stablecoin Rules Take Center Stage

A week ago, US President Donald Trump signed the Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act into law.

The bill sets clear rules for dollar‑pegged coins. It requires full backing by cash or Treasuries, regular reserve reports and know‑your‑customer checks.

Trump called the move “massive validation” for crypto users and businesses. House leaders also moved ahead on two other bills: the CLARITY Act and the Anti‑CBDC Act.

Their progress shows growing interest on Capitol Hill in shaping stablecoin policy. Clarity on rules could boost confidence in the broader crypto market, lifting sentiment for Bitcoin and beyond.

Featured image from Meta, chart from TradingView

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What happens when retail logs off from crypto and Wall Street tunes in? Looking at bitcoin’s

recent all-time-high, one would say it feels bullish and the industry is maturing.

That might as well be the case, but we might not be there yet. So before we floor our Lambos, let’s look under the hood.

First things first, retail investors have basically ghosted this rally. A quick search on Google Trends using the keyword “bitcoin” shows that the surge that was seen back in 2021’s bull market is non-existent. Back then, everyone and their grandmothers were Googling bitcoin, aping into altcoins and flooding the social media with rocket emojis. In 2025? It’s a ghost town in retail-land.

There was a blip of high retail interest surrounding the U.S. presidential election, when a short-lived memecoin mania took over retail sentiment. However, that surge is long gone, as memecoin prices tanked swiftly, even as bitcoin hit an all-time high this week, ripping past $111,000.

“Early in this cycle, memecoins became a concentration of risky retail-driven trading with related trading peaking in January,” said Toronto-based crypto platform FRNT Financial. “However, since then, there has been a virtual wash-out of interest and memecoin trading activity,” which shows “the tepid risk appetite in crypto at the moment,” FRNT added.

Translation: “Wen Lambo” crowd got burned, and they aren’t rushing back into the race track en masse anytime soon.

From Lambos to Corollas

On the topic of risk appetite, let’s go back to the car analogy.

During the 2021 bull market, people bought unreliable performance cars, stripped out the brakes and seatbelts to go faster than ever before, and did not care that there might be engine blowouts. As long as there was a promise of reaching the moon, bullish vibes were all that mattered.

Now? After losing tremendous amounts of money on those unsustainable go-fast cars for years, traders are driving Toyota Corollas—sensible sedans that are slow but steady and still on the road.

That risk-off sentiment is also evident from the funding rates, according to FRNT’s analysis of BTC perp rates—a measure of how much traders are willing to pay to maintain their long positions. When bitcoin reached a record high of around $42,000 in January 2021, the perp rate was about blistering 185%. Today, at bitcoin near $110,000, the rate is near 20% on crypto options exchange Deribit, meaning the risk appetite isn’t completely gone but nowhere near the 2021 frenzy.

ATH jitters

A third point to add is the high number of short positions in the market.

As CoinDesk’s Oliver Knight reported this week, the bitcoin long/short ratio is at its lowest point since the crypto winter in September 2022. This implies that the majority of the traders aren’t completely buying into this recent positive momentum and betting on bitcoin moving lower as a hedge for the new bullish rally.

The impact of such positioning was clear on Friday, when bitcoin swiftly crashed from near $111,000 to $108,000 in a matter of minutes and then bounced right back up to $109,000. The anxiety of a swift volatility is real.

So in a car-themed analogy, the drivers (in this case, investors) are still taking out their super-modified, unreliable sports cars for a weekend drive on the track. Still, they also have their Corollas following along. Just in case the engine blows on their go-fast cars.

Cautious optimism

Given the current macro-risk, it’s not entirely surprising that investors are on their toes and risk-averse. But this might just be exactly what your mechanic at the shop prescribed. In fact, this might be an indicator of a sustainable rally in the long term.

“Periods of low leverage and risk appetite in crypto have often preceded further sustainable gains,” according to FRNT.

“BTC appears to be in such a phase, set against a backdrop of numerous bullish catalysts and narratives,” the firm added.

The bottom line is that the retail Lambos might have been towed away, but big money is stepping in with their everlasting Toyotas. This might start a slow but steady race to the moon, not just a reckless joyride.

Read more: These Six Charts Explain Why Bitcoin’s Recent Move to Over $100K May Be More Durable Than January’s Run

Such a swift build in notional exposure shows traders rushing to add convex positions rather than thickening linear futures books. This shift often precedes sharp spot moves once dealers start adjusting delta hedges.

Deribit’s strike sheet explains the mood. The largest concentration sits at $100,000, where 17,420 call contracts tower above every other level. Another 10,660 calls rest at $110,000 and 11,730 at $95,000, while 11,600 calls cluster at $90,000.

On the downside, puts are arrayed at $80,000 (11,590 contracts), $75,000 (10,880), and $70,000 (10,400). In aggregate, calls total 51,410 contracts versus 32,870 puts, a 1.56 call-to-put ratio that leans firmly toward upside exposure even though Bitcoin has yet to revisit its March high near $97,000.

Because most of these strikes sit out-of-the-money, the options book carries sizeable positive gamma that intensifies as the spot price climbs. An option is out-of-the-money when its strike sits on the wrong side of the current spot price; calls have strikes above spot, puts below, so the contract would have no intrinsic value if exercised immediately.

Gamma measures how quickly an option’s delta (its price sensitivity to the underlying) changes for each one-unit move in the underlying; high positive gamma means the position’s hedge requirement accelerates as spot nears the strike, often forcing dealers to buy when the price rises and sell when it falls.

When Bitcoin probed above $93,000 on April 22 and April 23, dealers who sold these calls began buying spot and CME futures to stay neutral, reinforcing the advance. Once the market slipped back to the low $92,000s on April 24, that same gamma flipped, forcing small‐scale sales that kept the pullback orderly. In short, the strike distribution is already steering intraday flows despite the contracts being weeks away from expiry.

The options-to-futures open-interest ratio confirms the structural change. After hovering near 55% early in the week, the metric edged down to 54.23% on April 23, then vaulted to 58.76% by April 25, the highest reading this quarter.

A ratio pushing toward 60% tells us the options market is absorbing liquidity faster than the futures market. Larger relative options exposure generally corresponds with higher implied volatility and more pronounced dealer hedging feedback loops, both conditions that can magnify spot swings in both directions.

Several observations follow from the current setup. First, a price move through $95,000 would push a large pocket of call open interest into the money, forcing counterparties to chase spot and possibly drag Bitcoin toward the psychological $100,000 level. Second, downside protection is thin between $85,000 and $80,000; should spot break below that shelf, put gamma could accelerate the fall toward $75,000 where the next notable block of interest sits.

Third, the rapid expansion of notional exposure relative to a modest spot advance reveals traders paying for leverage rather than deploying fresh capital outright, a stance that can unwind suddenly if spot stalls. Fourth, the growing options share of total derivatives activity hints that sophisticated desks are bracing for wider price ranges during the remainder of the quarter, a view consistent with rising implied volatility across one-month tenors on Deribit.

Finally, the combination of elevated call interest, heavy dealer gamma, and a still-robust futures base means any decisive break of key strikes could inject a burst of directional energy that pushes Bitcoin closer to $100,000.

A close above $94,000 would leave the market barely two percent from lighting the $95,000 and $100,000 clusters, creating conditions for reflexive upside. Conversely, a drift below $88,000 would place dealers long gamma against sizable put positions, potentially smoothing declines into the high 70,000s, but also draining speculative momentum.

Either path carries more kinetic potential than last week because the street is now running a larger, more top-heavy options book against a futures base that has not grown in tandem.

The post Bitcoin options OI swells to $38B as calls crowd at $100,000 strike price appeared first on CryptoSlate.