Options Traders Are Betting Against Ethereum but FOR XRP: 3 Numbers That Decide Who's Right
Ethereum's November 13 options show a put/call ratio of 2.41 — traders are buying protection at 2.4x the rate of upside bets. XRP's ratio is 0.26. With $2.86 billion in options expiring today, here are the 3 numbers that decide who's right.
Ethereum options traders are buying downside protection at 2.4 times the rate of upside bets — while XRP traders are doing the exact opposite. On November 6, the options market split crypto's two biggest altcoins into a bear and a bull, and $2.86 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options expired on Deribit the same morning. The three numbers that decide who is right are 2.41, 0.26 and $2,250.
That is the story of this market right now: it is not one market at all. Bitcoin traders are calmly positioned for a bounce, Ethereum traders are paying up for insurance, and XRP traders are loading the most aggressive upside bets in the altcoin market — all on a day when Bitcoin fell 6% to about $75,700, Ethereum dropped 8% to $2,230, and more than $1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated.
The $2.86 Billion Expiry That Started the Day
Friday, November 6, opened with one of the biggest options events of the month. According to Deribit's own expiry reminder, reported by PANews and Phemex, about $2.86 billion in Bitcoin and Ethereum options expired at 08:00 UTC. Bitcoin accounted for roughly $2.64 billion of that notional value, Ethereum about $224.5 million.
The split between the two books could hardly have been sharper. Bitcoin's expiring options carried a put/call ratio of just 0.38 — heavily skewed toward calls, with open interest concentrated at the $82,000 and $85,000 strikes and a max pain price of $79,000. Ethereum's expiring book carried a put/call ratio of 1.27, with puts outnumbering calls and a large cluster of put positions around $2,100. Its max pain price sat at $2,350.
Read plainly: into the expiry, Bitcoin traders were positioned for upside, Ethereum traders were positioned for protection. And the market moved the way the Ethereum book feared. Bitcoin fell about 6% on the day to roughly $75,700, Ethereum fell more than 7% toward $2,230, and the Nasdaq's 5.5% drop on November 5 dragged the whole risk complex down with it. According to KuCoin's market data roundup, total crypto liquidations reached $1.357 billion in 24 hours, including $437 million in Bitcoin and $300 million in Ethereum liquidations. Our own guide to how crypto liquidations work — and the five leverage mistakes behind them explains why a day like this wipes out leveraged traders so fast.
But the expiry itself was only the warm-up. The more important story is what traders did with the NEXT expiries — and there the Ethereum-XRP split becomes extreme.
Number 1: Ethereum's Put/Call Ratio Hit 2.41
The single most striking number in the crypto options market today is Ethereum's. According to TokenPost's November 6 options snapshot, the put/call ratio on Ether's nearest expiry — November 13 — reached 2.41. That means for every call option open, there are 2.41 puts. In raw contracts: 84,060 puts against just 34,902 calls, with total open interest of 118,962 contracts worth about $270.42 million.
A quick primer: a call option is a bet the price goes up; a put is a bet — or insurance — that it goes down. The put/call ratio divides open puts by open calls. A ratio near 0.5 to 0.7 is normal for crypto, because options books usually sit call-heavy. A reading well above 1.0 means the book is unusually defensive. At 2.41, Ether's November 13 book is the most lopsided major-coin options book in the market today.
The most actively traded Ether options tell the same story: the five most traded contracts were nearly all puts, with $2,000 puts for November 9, 13, 20 and 27 dominating the tape. Traders are specifically buying protection at $2,000, roughly 10% below Ether's current price of about $2,230. Coinotag's options dashboard adds that Ether's 30-day implied volatility is 52.7% — far above Bitcoin's 37.9% — meaning Ether options are pricing in much bigger moves. And the November 13 max pain price is $2,250, almost exactly where Ether trades now.
Why so nervous? Ether fell 8% on the day, underperforming Bitcoin by a wide margin, and has lost its 200-day moving average while the ETH/BTC ratio keeps deteriorating. The fundamental picture is mixed: a record 43.8 million ETH — 35.9% of supply — is now staked, even as the average staking yield has fallen to 2.63%. Staking locks up supply, which is bullish in theory, but the part that can be sold is being sold. For the full background, start with our complete beginner's guide to Ethereum.
Number 2: XRP's Put/Call Ratio Is Just 0.26
Now look at the other side of the trade. XRP's nearest expiry — November 27 — carries a put/call ratio of 0.26. For every put, there are nearly four calls. Open interest stands at 21,765,000 contracts worth about $25.95 million, and the positioning is dominated by upside bets: XRP's three largest November 27 positions are all calls, led by the $1.65 strike with 5,177,000 contracts in open interest, followed by the $1.30 strike at 2,527,000 and the $2.00 strike at 2,035,000.
That is remarkable because XRP is having a terrible day on the price chart, falling roughly 7% to 9% to around $1.19 to $1.24 — one of the worst performers among the majors. Yet options traders are not buying protection. They are buying calls, including more than 5 million contracts betting XRP reaches $1.65, roughly 35% above its current price, before November 27.
The contrast with Ethereum could not be starker. Same market, same sell-off, same day — and one coin's options book is 2.41 puts per call while the other's is 0.26. Traders are paying for insurance on ETH and paying for upside on XRP. The max pain price for XRP's November 27 expiry is $1.30, about 9% above the current price, which means the options book as a whole would prefer XRP to drift slightly higher rather than crash.
What is behind the XRP optimism? Two forces: the ETF story is still alive — the first 1933 Act spot XRP ETF could launch as soon as next week, with five funds already listed on the DTCC — and XRP traders have learned this coin moves on its own catalysts, regulatory decisions and ETF launches, more than on Bitcoin's mood. Our beginner's guide to XRP explains why its price often disconnects from the rest of the market. Whether the call buyers are right depends on whether a catalyst lands before November 27.
Number 3: Solana Sits in the Middle — and Below $90
Solana is the control group in this experiment, and it is sitting almost exactly in the middle. Its nearest expiry, November 7, carries a put/call ratio of 1.12 — 15,660 puts against 13,960 calls — with open interest of 29,620 contracts worth about $2.68 million and a max pain price of $90. That is mildly defensive, but nothing like Ethereum's 2.41, and a world away from XRP's 0.26.
Solana's price action explains the caution: SOL fell about 6% to roughly $89 to $90, losing the psychologically important $100 level, and is now down more than 8% on the week. The options-implied range for its November 27 expiry runs from about $76 to $103 at one standard deviation — a wide band that reflects how violently SOL can move in either direction.
The three-way comparison is the real story of this article, so here it is in one table:
The Options Scoreboard: ETH, SOL and XRP Side by Side
| Coin | Nearest expiry | Put/call ratio | Max pain | What traders are saying |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethereum (ETH) | Nov 13 | 2.41 | $2,250 | Heavy protection; $2,000 puts dominate trading |
| Solana (SOL) | Nov 7 | 1.12 | $90 | Mildly defensive; balanced book, wide expected range |
| XRP | Nov 27 | 0.26 | $1.30 | Aggressive upside; $1.65 calls are the biggest position |
| Bitcoin (BTC) | Nov 7 / Nov 10 | 0.70–0.75 | $75,500 | Normal call-heavy book; call wall at $81,000 |
Sources: TokenPost altcoin options snapshot, November 6, 2026; Coinotag options dashboard; Deribit expiry data via PANews/Phemex; AlphaFinance Deribit data. Prices as of November 6, 2026.
Bitcoin, for reference, looks almost boring by comparison. Its put/call ratio sits around 0.70 to 0.75 — normal for crypto — with $32.6 billion in total open interest, a max pain price of $75,500 for the November 10 expiry, a call wall at $81,000 and a put wall at $70,000. The biggest single expiry is December 25, with $10.66 billion in open interest and max pain at $75,000: the Bitcoin options market expects BTC to spend the next seven weeks roughly where it is now. New to this analysis? Our beginner's guide to trading crypto covers calls, puts and leverage before you risk a dollar.
What Most People Get Wrong About Options Data
Options data is powerful, but it is also widely misunderstood. Three mistakes show up every time a put/call number goes viral.
Mistake 1: A high put/call ratio does not mean traders expect a crash. Most puts are bought as insurance, not as a directional bet. A fund holding $100 million of Ether buys $2,000 puts the way a homeowner buys fire insurance — not because they expect a fire, but because the cost of being wrong is catastrophic. A put/call ratio of 2.41 says hedging demand is extreme; it does not say the market expects Ether at $2,000. In fact, heavy put buying often marks pessimism peaks, because everyone who wanted protection has already bought it.
Mistake 2: Max pain is not a price target. Max pain is the strike price at which the most expiring options would expire worthless — the point where option sellers lose the least. It acts like a magnet in quiet weeks, but it is a reference level, not a forecast. Ether's max pain of $2,250 for November 13 tells you where the book is most comfortable, not where Ether is going.
Mistake 3: Call buying is not the same as confidence. XRP's 0.26 ratio looks wildly bullish, but calls are cheap lottery tickets when volatility is high. Buying a $1.65 strike call expiring November 27 costs a fraction of buying XRP itself — and most of those calls will expire worthless if no catalyst arrives. The XRP book is a bet on an event, not a vote on the coin's long-term value.
The honest way to read this data is as a positioning map, not a prediction: Ethereum traders are scared and hedged, XRP traders are greedy and event-driven, Solana traders are waiting, and Bitcoin traders are, by crypto standards, calm.
Three Scenarios: What Happens Next
Options prices themselves imply how far each coin is expected to move. According to Fuelmaps' Deribit-implied ranges, captured November 6, the market's one-standard-deviation expected move — the range covering roughly two-thirds of outcomes — looks like this:
- Bitcoin to November 13: $71,353 to $80,656. A $70,000 test is inside the normal range; so is a reclaim of $80,000. Neither would surprise the options market.
- Ethereum to November 13: $2,055 to $2,419. The $2,000 put strike that traders are buying so heavily sits just below the bottom of the expected range — it is a tail-risk hedge, not the base case.
- Solana to November 27: $76.01 to $102.73. The market gives SOL a real chance of reclaiming $100 — and a real chance of falling toward $76.
With those ranges in mind, here are the three scenarios that decide who is right:
| Scenario | Trigger | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Bull case — XRP wins | Spot XRP ETF launches next week; Bitcoin holds $75,000 | XRP call buyers cash in toward $1.65; ETH hedgers unwind puts, squeezing Ether higher; the November 13 expiry passes quietly |
| Base case — nobody wins big | No catalyst; stocks stabilise; Bitcoin drifts $73,000–$78,000 | Options decay toward max pain: ETH near $2,250, XRP near $1.30, BTC near $75,500; most November 7 and 13 contracts expire near worthless |
| Bear case — ETH hedgers win | December Fed hike odds keep rising; Nasdaq falls again; Bitcoin breaks $70,000 | ETH $2,000 puts pay off; XRP $1.65 calls expire worthless; Solana tests $76; the put wall at $70,000 becomes the line that decides the month |
The macro backdrop favours the hedgers more than the bulls right now. The US jobs report landed at 165,000 new jobs — two and a half times the 65,000 forecast — and Kalshi put the chance of a December Fed hike at 66% as of November 5, while CME FedWatch showed above 80% on November 4. A Fed that hikes into a sell-off is the worst combination for risk assets. The Fear and Greed Index sits at 28 — firmly in fear territory — and Bitcoin dominance has climbed to about 58.5%, meaning capital is consolidating into Bitcoin or leaving the market entirely, not rotating into altcoins. Our analysis of what the Fear and Greed Index at 28 has meant for Bitcoin over nine years puts today's reading in historical context.
The Dates That Decide Everything
If you only remember three dates from this article, make them these. The next options expiry is November 7, with $1.63 billion in notional open interest across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin and BNB expiring at 08:00 UTC — Solana's $90 max pain level is the one to watch there. Then comes November 13, Ethereum's big test: its heavily put-loaded book expires, with max pain at $2,250 and the $2,000 puts as the line in the sand. Finally, November 27 is XRP's day: its call-dominated book expires with max pain at $1.30 and the giant $1.65 call position either paying off or expiring worthless.
Between now and then, watch three things: whether Bitcoin holds $75,000, whether the spot XRP ETF actually launches next week, and whether Ether's put/call ratio starts falling from 2.41 — a falling ratio means hedgers are unwinding, often the first sign of a bottom. Our on-chain bottoming signals piece covers the SOPR and MVRV readings that point the same way.
One last note for anyone tempted to trade this data directly: options are leveraged instruments, and the people on the other side are professionals. Our explainer on how crypto options trading works covers the mechanics — but reading the options market is free, and for most people it is far more valuable as a sentiment gauge than as a trading signal. The edge is in knowing which coin's traders are scared and which are greedy.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the put/call ratio in crypto options?
The put/call ratio divides the number of open put options by the number of open call options. Calls are bets the price rises; puts are bets — or insurance — that it falls. A ratio below 1.0 means calls dominate, which is normal in crypto (0.5 to 0.7 is typical). A ratio above 1.0 means the book is unusually defensive; Ethereum's 2.41 means 2.41 puts for every call — extreme hedging demand.
Why are Ethereum options so bearish right now?
Ether fell about 8% on November 6, underperforming Bitcoin, and has lost its 200-day moving average while the ETH/BTC ratio keeps deteriorating. Traders are buying $2,000 puts expiring in November as insurance against a deeper drop. At the same time, a record 43.8 million ETH is staked, which locks up supply but also means the freely tradable float is thinner — so hedging demand concentrates in the options market.
Why are XRP options so bullish if XRP fell 7% today?
XRP options traders are betting on an event, not on today's price. The first 1933 Act spot XRP ETF could launch as soon as next week, and the biggest single XRP options position is 5,177,000 call contracts at the $1.65 strike expiring November 27. If the ETF launches, those calls pay off handsomely. If it slips, they expire worthless. The 0.26 put/call ratio is a bet on a catalyst landing within three weeks.
What is max pain in crypto options?
Max pain is the strike price at which the largest number of expiring options would expire worthless — the point where option sellers lose the least money. It acts as a soft magnet for price in quiet weeks, but it is a reference level, not a price target. Current max pain levels: Bitcoin $75,500 (November 10), Ethereum $2,250 (November 13), Solana $90 (November 7) and XRP $1.30 (November 27).
When do the big crypto options expiries happen in November 2026?
Three dates matter most: November 7 ($1.63 billion in notional open interest across BTC, ETH, SOL, XRP, DOGE and BNB), November 13 (Ethereum's heavily put-loaded book, max pain $2,250) and November 27 (XRP's call-dominated book, max pain $1.30). The largest single expiry of the year is December 25, with $10.66 billion in Bitcoin options open interest and max pain at $75,000.
Should I buy XRP calls or Ethereum puts based on this data?
No — options data is a sentiment gauge, not a trading recommendation. Most puts are insurance held by funds, not crash predictions, and most out-of-the-money calls expire worthless. Use this data to understand positioning, not to copy leveraged trades. This article is educational, not financial advice.
The Bottom Line
The crypto options market has just delivered its clearest verdict of the year, and it is a split decision. Ethereum traders are buying protection at 2.4 times the rate of upside bets, with $2,000 puts dominating the most-traded contracts. XRP traders are doing the opposite, loading 5.1 million calls at the $1.65 strike on a bet that an ETF launch lands before November 27. Bitcoin traders, meanwhile, are calmly positioned near max pain at $75,500, and Solana traders are waiting in the middle at $90.
Somebody is wrong, and the next three expiries — November 7, November 13 and November 27 — will decide who. If the XRP ETF launches, the call buyers win. If the Fed hikes in December and stocks fall again, the $2,000 Ether puts will be the best trade in crypto. Until then, the smartest thing any investor can do is what the options market is already doing: know where the fear is, know where the greed is, and do not confuse either one with a prediction.
