Glassnode New Year Research Report: $95,000 Call Option Premium, Bulls Shift to Aggressive Offense

Title: Clearing the Decks

Authors: Chris Beamish, CryptoVizArt, Antoine Colpaert, Glassnode

Compiled by: AididiaoJP, Foresight News

Bitcoin has entered 2026 with a clearer market structure following a large-scale year-end correction. Current profit-taking pressure has eased, market risk appetite is gradually recovering, but to establish a sustained upward trend, it remains crucial to hold steady and reclaim key cost basis levels.

Summary

· After a deep correction and months of consolidation, Bitcoin officially enters 2026. On-chain data shows profit-taking pressure has significantly eased, and market structure shows initial signs of stabilization at the lower end of the range.

· Although selling pressure has decreased, a large amount of previous trapped positions still pile up above the current price, mainly concentrated in the upper half of the current range. This will continue to suppress upward movement, highlighting the importance of breaking through key resistance levels to restore an upward trend.

· Demand from digital asset treasury companies for Bitcoin still provides underlying support for prices, but this demand is pulse-like, lacking sustainability and structural consistency.

· After net outflows at the end of 2025, US spot Bitcoin ETF funds have recently shown signs of net inflows. Meanwhile, open interest in futures markets has stopped declining and begun to rise again, indicating institutional investors are re-engaging, and derivatives activity is rebuilding.

· Record-breaking options positions expired at year-end, with over 45% of open contracts liquidated, removing structural hedging constraints in the market and allowing true risk appetite to be more clearly reflected in prices.

· Implied volatility likely bottomed out, with buyer demand at the start of the year gently lifting the volatility curve, but it remains in a low range over the past three months.

· As put option premiums narrow and call option trading share increases, market skewness continues to normalize. Since the beginning of the year, options trading has tilted toward bullishness, indicating investors are shifting from defensive hedging to actively positioning for upside.

· Market makers’ positions in the $95,000 to $104,000 range have turned net short, meaning that as prices rise into this zone, their hedging actions will passively push prices higher. Additionally, the premium on call options around the $95,000 strike suggests long holders prefer to hold rather than quickly take profits.

Overall, the market is gradually shifting from a defensive deleveraging phase to a selective risk-on stance, entering 2026 with a clearer structure and higher resilience.

On-Chain Insights

Profit-Taking Pressure Significantly Eases

In the first week of 2026, Bitcoin broke out of a consolidation range near $87,000 that lasted for several weeks, rising about 8.5% to a high of $94,400. This rally was built on a significant cooling of overall profit-taking pressure. In late December 2025, the 7-day moving average of realized profits sharply declined from high levels above $1 billion daily during most of Q4 to $183.8 million.

The decline in realized profits, especially the reduced selling pressure from long-term holders, indicates that the main selling force suppressing price rises has been temporarily released. As selling strength weakens, the market stabilizes and regains confidence, fueling a new upward move. Therefore, the early-year breakout signals that the market has effectively digested profit-taking, opening space for prices to rise.

Facing Resistance from Trapped Positions Above

As profit-taking pressure eases, prices can move higher, but the current rebound is entering a supply zone composed of positions with different cost bases. The market has entered a range mainly controlled by “recent top buyers,” whose cost bases are densely distributed between $92,100 and $117,400. These investors bought heavily near previous highs and held through the decline from the all-time high to around $80,000, until the current rebound.

Thus, as prices climb back into their cost range, these investors will have opportunities to unwind or realize small profits, forming natural resistance to further upward movement. To truly restart a bull market, the market needs time and resilience to absorb this supply above and push prices through this zone.

Key Recovery Levels

While facing resistance from above, determining whether the recent rebound can truly reverse the previous downtrend and enter a demand-driven phase requires a reliable price analysis framework. The short-term holder cost basis model is particularly important during this transition.

Notably, the market’s weak balance in December last year occurred near the model’s lower boundary, reflecting fragile market sentiment and lack of buyer confidence at that time. The subsequent rebound pushed prices back toward the model’s mean, around $99,100, which corresponds to the short-term holder cost basis.

Therefore, the first key confirmation of market recovery will be sustained price stability above this short-term holder cost basis, indicating renewed confidence among new entrants and a potential shift to an optimistic trend.

Profit and Loss Crossroads

As the focus shifts to whether the market can effectively reclaim short-term holder cost bases, the current market structure bears similarities to the failed rebound in Q1 2022. If prices cannot sustain above this level, deeper downside risks may emerge. Continued lack of confidence could further reduce demand.

This dynamic is also clearly reflected in the short-term holder MVRV indicator, which compares spot prices to the average cost of recent buyers to gauge unrealized gains or losses. Historically, when this indicator stays below 1 (price below average cost), the market tends to be dominated by bears. Currently, it has rebounded from a low of 0.79 to 0.95, meaning recent buyers are still holding about 5% unrealized losses. If the market cannot quickly return to profitability (MVRV > 1), downside pressure remains, making this a key indicator to watch in the coming weeks.

Off-Chain Insights

Digital Asset Treasury Demand Cooling

Corporate treasury demand still provides important marginal support for Bitcoin, but their buying behavior remains intermittent and event-driven. Entities in treasuries have repeatedly shown weekly net inflows of thousands of BTC, but these do not form sustained, stable accumulation patterns.

Large inflows often occur during local price corrections or consolidations, indicating that corporate buying remains opportunistic and price-driven rather than long-term structural accumulation. Although the participation of institutions has expanded, overall fund inflows are pulse-like, with long silent periods in between.

Without sustained treasury buying support, corporate demand more often acts as a “stabilizer” for prices rather than a driver of trend. Market direction will increasingly depend on derivatives position changes and short-term liquidity conditions.

ETF Fund Flows Return to Net Inflows

Recent data shows early signs of institutional re-entry into the US spot Bitcoin ETF market. After a period of net outflows and subdued trading at the end of 2025, fund flows have recently shifted toward net inflows, coinciding with prices stabilizing and rebounding in the $80,000 range.

Although the current net inflow scale has not yet reached mid-cycle peaks, the trend is clear. Increasing days of net inflows indicate ETF investors are shifting from net sellers back toward marginal buyers.

This shift suggests that institutional spot demand is once again becoming a positive market force rather than a liquidity drain, providing structural buying support for the market’s stabilization at the start of the year.

Futures Market Activity Rebounds

Following the sharp deleveraging triggered by price declines at the end of 2025, open interest in futures markets has recently begun to rise again. After falling from a cycle high of over $50 billion, open interest has stabilized and is gradually increasing, indicating derivatives traders are rebuilding risk positions.

This reaccumulation aligns with the stabilization of prices above $80,000 to $90,000, showing traders are gradually increasing risk exposure rather than rushing to chase higher prices. The pace of re-accumulation remains moderate, and open interest remains well below previous cycle highs, reducing the risk of large-scale liquidations in the short term.

The gentle rebound in open interest signals improved risk appetite, with derivatives buying gradually returning, helping prices initiate a new phase of valuation as liquidity normalizes at the start of the year.

Options Market “Massive Reshuffle”

At the end of 2025, Bitcoin options markets experienced the largest position reset in history. Open interest dropped from 579,258 contracts on December 25 to 316,472 contracts after expiry on December 26, a decrease of over 45%.

A large concentration of open positions at certain strike prices influences short-term price movements through market maker hedging. By year-end, this concentration reached high levels, causing “price stickiness” and limiting volatility.

Now, this pattern has been broken. With the expiry of these concentrated positions, the market has shed its previous hedging constraints.

Post-expiry, the market environment offers a clearer window into true sentiment, as new positions reflect current risk appetite rather than legacy positions. This makes early January options trading more directly indicative of market expectations for future trends.

Implied Volatility Likely Bottomed

Following the large reset of options positions, implied volatility touched short-term lows during Christmas. Trading was subdued during the holiday period, with weekly implied volatility falling to its lowest since late September last year.

Subsequently, buyer interest has begun to return, with investors gradually building long volatility positions (especially bullish ones) at the start of the year, gently lifting the volatility curve across maturities.

Although it has rebounded, implied volatility remains compressed. Volatilities across one-week to six-month maturities are clustered between 42.6% and 45.4%, with a relatively flat curve.

Volatility remains at low levels over the past three months, and recent increases more likely reflect renewed market participation rather than a comprehensive re-pricing of risk.

Market Is Becoming Balanced

As implied volatility stabilizes, skewness provides a clearer view of traders’ directional preferences. Over the past month, the premium for out-of-the-money put options relative to calls has continued to narrow, with the 25-delta skew gradually returning toward zero.

This indicates a market gradually shifting toward bullish positioning. Investors are moving from purely defensive hedging to increasing exposure to upside opportunities, consistent with their rebalancing after year-end position adjustments.

Meanwhile, defensive positions have decreased. Some downside protection positions have been unwound, reducing the premium paid for “black swan” insurance.

Overall, skewness suggests market risk expression is becoming more balanced, with increased expectations for upward price movement or volatility expansion.

New Year Options Trading Shows Bullish Preference

Fund flow data confirms the skewness trend. Since the start of the year, options activity has shifted from systematic selling of calls (betting on lower volatility) to active buying of calls (betting on upside or increased volatility).

In the past week, bullish call buying accounted for 30.8% of total options activity. The rising demand for calls has also attracted volatility sellers, who are selling calls (comprising 25.7% of total activity) to earn higher premiums.

Put options account for 43.5% of total volume, which is relatively moderate given recent price increases. This aligns with the normalization of skewness, indicating reduced immediate demand for downside protection.

Market Makers Turn Negative in Key Range

With active call option trading since the start of the year, market maker positions have also adjusted accordingly. Currently, in the $95,000 to $104,000 range, market makers hold a net short position.

Within this zone, as prices rise, market makers need to buy spot or perpetual contracts to hedge risk, which passively pushes prices higher during market strength—quite different from the environment at the end of last year that suppressed volatility.

The behavior of traders buying call options heavily in this range during Q1 further confirms a shift in risk expression. The current market maker position structure means their hedging actions are no longer suppressing price volatility and may even amplify upward moves.

$95,000 Call Option Premium Shows Patience

The premium behavior of call options at the $95,000 strike provides an effective indicator of market sentiment shifts. When spot prices were around $87,000 on January 1, the premium for calls at this strike started accelerating and continued to increase as prices approached the recent high of $94,400.

Subsequently, the premium buying slowed but did not significantly decline. Importantly, this process was not accompanied by a large increase in call option selling.

This indicates limited profit-taking among call holders. Since the recent high, call selling has only increased modestly, suggesting most bullish positions are being held rather than quickly realized.

Overall, the premium behavior around the $95,000 strike reflects the patience and confidence of bullish participants.

Summary

As Bitcoin enters the new year, it has significantly cleaned up its historical positions across spot, futures, and options markets. The deleveraging at the end of 2025 and the expiry of year-end options have effectively removed previous structural constraints, leaving a cleaner, clearer environment.

Early signs of renewed participation are emerging: ETF fund flows stabilize and rebound, futures activity rebuilds, options markets shift toward bullish positioning—skewness normalizes, volatility bottoms out, and market makers turn net short in key upper ranges.

These dynamics collectively indicate that the market is gradually transitioning from a defensive sell-off mode to a phase of selective risk-on, increasing participation. Although structural buying remains to be strengthened, the release of previous position pressures and the reaccumulation of bullish sentiment suggest Bitcoin is starting 2026 with a lighter footprint, improving internal structure and opening more possibilities for subsequent rallies.