Bitcoin options have expanded from roughly one-quarter to nearly half of notional open interest across the crypto-native derivatives venues tracked by blockchain analytics firm Glassnode, while dated futures activity has faded sharply in favor of perpetual contracts.
Glassnode’s “The State of Crypto Derivatives” report, using data through the settled close on Aug. 23, 2026, found that options gained share in four of the five market regimes examined since 2019. The increase accelerated during the extended bear-market phase, when traders appeared to rely more heavily on contracts that can structure hedges, generate premium income, or define potential losses in advance.
At the same time, dated futures volume stood around 97% below its 2021 level in the venues covered by the study. Perpetual futures — contracts without an expiry date that use funding payments to keep prices aligned with the spot market — absorbed much of that activity.
The two trends place crypto-native derivatives markets on a different footing from the 2021 cycle, when dated futures carried a larger share of speculative trading. Perpetuals remain the dominant instrument for directional positioning and short-term leverage, while options have captured a far larger role in managing exposure around volatility, price levels, and expiry dates.
Options take a larger place in bitcoin trading
Glassnode’s options analysis covered four crypto-native venues, while its futures dataset covered offshore platforms tracked by the firm and excluded CME. The distinction matters because CME has become a major regulated derivatives venue, particularly for institutional market participants, but it operates within a different market structure from the offshore and crypto-native platforms examined in the report.
Within the four-venue bitcoin options pool, Glassnode found that Bybit’s share of volume rose from below 10% to 28% during the period studied. The report also described a difference in turnover between venues: Bybit’s options open interest turned over in days, compared with weeks for the largest options book in the dataset.
A faster turnover rate can indicate that participants are using contracts more actively around shorter-term events and market moves, rather than retaining positions through long periods. It does not by itself identify whether trading is driven by hedging, market making, directional views, or yield-focused strategies, but it points to a more frequently refreshed options market.
Glassnode put Bybit’s options open interest at $2.33 billion, compared with $529 million during the venue’s first month in the options market. The firm said the path was uneven. Options initially lost share as perpetual futures expanded, then regained ground as the derivatives market matured and participants returned to contracts with more flexible payoff structures.
Ether volume and gold-linked contracts broaden the picture
Bitcoin remains the largest crypto options market, but Glassnode’s data showed that Ether contracts have become a significant part of the activity tracked on Bybit. Ether represented about one-third of the platform’s total options volume during the preceding 90 days, according to the report.
Bybit also recorded the highest Ether options volume among the four venues tracked for 143 consecutive days, measured in both coin-denominated terms and U.S. dollar value, Glassnode said. The result suggests Ether options liquidity has become less concentrated in a single bitcoin-led market structure and is increasingly capable of supporting substantial standalone activity.
The report also examined tokenized-gold derivatives, a smaller but distinct category linking crypto trading infrastructure to a traditional safe-haven asset. In tokenized-gold perpetual contracts measured in ounces, the largest tracked book held its position for 476 consecutive days. Glassnode said Bybit accounted for 97.1% of open interest in tokenized-gold options across the venues in its dataset.
That concentration means the tokenized-gold options market remains highly dependent on a limited number of trading venues, even as product choice broadens. A concentrated market can support deep liquidity at its leading platform, but it can also leave pricing and access more sensitive to changes in that venue’s activity or risk policies.
Perpetuals replace dated futures as the core trading instrument
The 97% decline in dated futures volume from 2021 levels illustrates how decisively perpetual contracts have displaced conventional expiry-based futures in crypto-native markets. Dated futures require traders to manage contract expiration and, depending on market conditions, can trade at premiums or discounts to spot prices. Perpetuals remove the expiry date, making them operationally simpler for continuous trading.
That convenience has helped perpetuals become the standard tool for traders seeking immediate long or short exposure. Yet the growing share of options shows that a market built around perpetuals is also developing demand for instruments that can manage the risks created by constant leverage and abrupt volatility.
Options allow a trader to buy protection against a price move, sell volatility under defined terms, or construct positions that respond differently to upside and downside scenarios. Their expansion does not prove that market participants have become uniformly defensive. Options can also be used to express aggressive views. But the rising share of open interest indicates that traders are allocating more capital to contracts with conditional, rather than purely linear, returns.
Glassnode’s findings point to a derivatives market where perpetuals provide the day-to-day engine of price exposure, while options increasingly shape how that exposure is packaged and managed. Dated futures, once a prominent feature of crypto trading cycles, now occupy a far smaller role in the offshore market segment covered by the study.
As derivatives evolve toward options and perpetuals, level up your strategy with our in-depth guide on crypto derivatives today.
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