(Nov 11): Bitcoin options traders buoyed by Donald Trump’s election victory are already eyeing a landmark price of US$100,000 (RM438,000) for the original cryptocurrency, after it surged to a fresh record on hopes for a more crypto-friendly administration.

Investors are lining up bets that Bitcoin will pass the milestone as soon as the end of the year, according to data from crypto options exchange Deribit. The token topped US$82,000 for the first time on Monday.

Digital-asset investors are in a giddy mood after Trump’s triumph in the US election race. Once a crypto-skeptic, Trump staged a about-face on the sector this year, courting voters and donations with pledges to establish a Bitcoin stockpile and fire US Securities and Exchange Commission chair Gary Gensler, who had led a crackdown on the industry.

“We’re witnessing some significant movements in the wake of the US election,” said Nick Forster, founder of Derive, a decentralised finance protocol for options trading. Traders are placing large bets with a US$100,000 call option expiring on Dec 27, “a trade that has already seen a 30% increase in value, making it one of the largest notional trades and most profitable in recent weeks,” Forster added.

As of Monday morning in London, there was 9,635 Bitcoin — worth roughly US$780 million — in open interest bet on Bitcoin hitting US$100,000 by Dec 27, Deribit data shows. That’s the most riding on any trade for that expiry date. Deribit puts the chances of the trade paying off at 18.6%.

The US$100,000 bets aren’t the only sign of growing institutional interest in Bitcoin in the options market. Futures trading is up sharply at the Chicago-based CME Group Inc, with outstanding contracts — or open interest — on Bitcoin futures rising 12% since Nov 5 and Ether futures jumping 29% to a record high.

While many investors appear to be taking an increasingly bullish approach, some caution remains. Bitcoin’s funding rate, or the premium paid for new long positions in perpetual futures, has inched up since Trump’s victory, but is still well below its 2024 peak, according to CryptoQuant data. Some observers have cautioned that it isn’t certain how focused Trump will be on crypto once he takes office, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and rising trade tensions with China.

“There are a whole range of promises Trump made during the campaign, and it remains to be seen how serious he was,” said Le Shi, Hong Kong managing director at market-making firm Auros. “As we start to get some data points in either direction, traders are going to be making bigger bets on whether the remaining promises will be kept or not.”

Uploaded by Felyx Teoh