As bitcoin (BTC) drops below $91,000 amid President Donald Trump’s tariff rhetoric, data from decentralized trading venues points to expectations for deeper price declines in coming months.
Traders on Derive.xyz, a decentralized protocol for on-chain options, perpetuals and structured products, see a 30% chance of bitcoin falling below $80,000 by the end of June. There’s similar positioning on Deribit, the largest centralized options exchange.
“Options markets show a clear downside skew, with a 30% chance BTC falls below $80K by June 26, compared to a 19% chance it rallies above $120K over the same period,” Sean Dawson, the protocol’s head of research, told CoinDesk.
Options are derivative contracts that let you bet on bitcoin’s price like a side wager at a sports game. Here’s how it works: You pay a small fee to lock in a “what if” deal. If BTC jumps above a certain predetermined price level, you win big by buying cheap. That’s a call option.
If it tanks below a preset level, you cash in by selling high. That’s a put option. In both cases, you stand to lose the entry fee and the premium if the market doesn’t move as you expected.
It’s this crowdsourced price-guessing that’s revealing expectations of a 30% chance of BTC falling below $80,000.
Such a move would take prices to their lowest level since April 2025. Back then, the largest cryptocurrency tanked to $75,000 as Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on imports from other nations, which rocked global markets.
Tariff concerns have resurfaced as Trump threatens a 10% levy on imports from 10 European nations for opposing his plan to take over Greenland. Bitcoin has since dropped to $91,000 from $95,000.
These geopolitical tensions could lead to deeper losses, according to Dawson.
“Rising geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and Europe – particularly around Greenland – raise the risk of a regime shift back into a higher-volatility environment, a dynamic not currently reflected in spot prices,” he said.
He explained that options skew, which measures the price differential between call and put options, remains negative, implying downside fears in the near-term.
On both Derive and Deribit, there is a sizeable concentration of open interest in put options at strike prices ranging from $75,000 to $80,000. This implies expectations of a drawdown into the mid-$70,000s.