Earlier this month, Coindesk highlighted an increase in demand for $300,000 in Bitcoin listed on Delibit

The Call Option is looking at as one of the most popular bullish plays due to its extremely important June quarter expiration date.

The bet is now the most popular at the expiration of the imminent quarter, bolstering the appeal of traders as a “lottery” who expects a rallies of over $300,000 Bitcoin prices by the end of next month.

According to data source DeLibit, the $300,000 call option was the most popular bet with its June 27th expiration date, bringing the expected open profit of over $600 million, up from $484 million three weeks ago. The expected open profit represents the dollar value of the number of active or open contracts at a given time. In Deribit, one option contract represents one BTC.

“The June $300,000 BTC call option emerged as a strike with the highest open interest (expired June) reflecting on a continuous rise in positions, reflecting aggressive speculative positioning by traders,” Rinchen, Asia head of business development at Delivit, told Koindsk.

“The combination of record-breaking volume and centralized options betting indicates the potential for increased market reliability and increased forward volatility,” Chen added.

DeLibit’s anticipated option open interest reached a record high of $42.5 billion last week. This momentum is reflected in the platform’s newly launched Block RFQ (Quotation Mark Request) system, registering nearly $1 billion in historical records every day.

Call options provide the buyer with what is appropriate, but do not provide an obligation to purchase the underlying asset, BTC, at a predefined price before a certain date. Cole buyers are implicitly bullish in the market.

The $300,000 call expired on June 27 bets that Bitcoin prices will triple up from the current $110,000 to more than $30,000 by the end of the first half.

The first half ends in about four weeks, so the bet sounds quirky. But that’s been the case with Delibit recently, with traders increasingly targeting potential for rising through short-term options.

This is evidenced by a reversal of front-end risk, measuring calls demand related to short-term ones, and is more expensive than those with longer maturities.

Amberdata’s chart shows that the risk reversal is overall positive, indicating a bullish call option bias. However, short calls are more expensive than long calls. The opposite is usually the case.

This trend indicates an increased appetite for fast-paced bullish bets among market participants.

“The 3-Day Bitcoin Conference 2025 is scheduled to start in Las Vegas today, so people are speculating about what new bullish announcements will be released at the event,” Chen explained.

The opposite signal

According to Markus Thielen, founder of 10x research, the growing demand for short-term calls could be the opposite signal suggesting that speculative overload is often seen near the top of the market.

Thielen said the options market has issued a warning and that the seven-day call is trading at PUTS’ 10% premium.

“The options market is flashing warnings. Bitcoin skew measures the difference in implicit volatility between puts and calls, dropping to almost -10%, indicating that calls are priced at much more volatility than puts.

“This suggests that traders are actively chasing downside risk rather than hedging downside risk. In our experience, such extreme skew levels often reflect peak bullish emotions, classic paradoxical signals,” Thielen added.

In the crypto market, bold predictions aren’t just talk – they’re backed by real dollars, often through option plays that resemble lottery tickets offering outsized upside for relatively small costs.

The stand-out as of writing is the Deribit-listed $300,000 strike bitcoin call option expiring on June 26. Theoretically, this call is a bet that BTC’s spot price will triple to over $300,000 by the end of the first half of the year.

Over 5,000 contracts were active in the June $300K call at press time, with a notional open interest of $484 million. That makes it the second-most popular option bet in the crucial June expiry, trailing only the $110K call.

Deribit is the world’s leading crypto options exchange, accounting for over 75% of the global options activity. On Deribit, one options contract represents 1 BTC. Quarterly expiries, such as the one due on June 26, drive heightened market activity and volatility, with traders using these deadlines to hedge positions, lock in gains, or speculate on the next price moves.

“Perhaps, people like buying lottery tickets. As evidenced by the call skew, there are always folks that want the hyperinflation hedge,” Spencer Hallarn, a derivatives trader at crypto market maker GSR, said, explaining the high open interest in the so-called out-of-the-money (OTM) call at the $300K strike.

Deep OTM calls, also called wings, require a large move in the underlying asset’s price to become profitable and, hence, are significantly cheaper compared to those closer to or below the asset’s going market rate. However, the payoff is huge if the market rallies, which makes them similar to buying lottery tickets with slim odds but potential for a big payout.

Deribit’s BTC options market has experienced similar flows during previous bull cycles, but those bets rarely gained enough popularity to rank as the second-most preferred play in quarterly expiries.

The chart shows that the June 26 expiry is the largest among all settlements due this year, and the $300K call has the second-highest open interest buildup in the June expiry options.

Explaining the chunky notional open interest in the $300K call, GSR’s Trader Simranjeet Singh said, “I suspect this is mostly an accumulation of relatively cheap wings betting on broader U.S. reg narrative being pro-crypto and the ‘wingy possibility’ (no pun intended) of a BTC strategic reserve that was punted around at the start of the administration.”

On Friday, Senator Cynthia Lummis said in a speech that she’s “particularly pleased with President Trump’s support of her BITCOIN Act.

“The BITCOIN Act is the only solution to our nation’s $36T debt. I’m grateful for a forward-thinking president who not only recognizes this, but acts on it,” Lummis said on X.

Who sold $300K calls?

According to Amberdata’s Director of Derivatives, notable selling in the $300K call expiring on June 26 occurred in April as part of the covered call strategy, which traders use to generate additional yield on top of their spot market holdings.

“My thought is that the selling volume on April 23 came from traders generating income against a long position,” Magadini told CoinDesk. “Each option sold for about $60 at 100% implied volatility.”

Selling higher strike OTM call options and collecting premium while holding a long position in the spot market is a popular yield-generating strategy in both crypto and traditional markets.

Read more: Bitcoin May Evolve Into Low-Beta Equity Play Reflexively, BlackRock’s Mitchnik Says