Market data for Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) option contract trading suggests that market participants expect — or at the very least fear — a drop below the $2,200 level — about 13% lower than the current price of over $2,500.
What Happened: Following Monday's Ethereum drop to $2,450, traders — or a major trader — acquired 36,000 Deribit-listed ETH put options contracts betting on the coin's value dropping below $2,200 by March 18, according to a Coindesk report.
Over 20,000 of those contracts were acquired on institution-focused over-the-counter trading platform Paradigm, suggesting strong institutional participation.
See Also: Can Ethereum Drop Lower?
Patrick Chu — director of institutional sales and trading at Paradigm — told CoinDesk that the firm witnessed strong demand for the aforementioned contracts "as players looked to buy short-dated protection on the key 2,200 pivot level in ETH."
A representative of Swiss-based market data firm Laevitas said that most of those put contracts acquired appear to be actual standalone trades and not a part of a more complex strategy, or they could also be short-term hedges.
ETH Price Action: As of press time, Ethereum is trading at over $2,590 after seeing its price increase by about 2.7% over the last 24 hours.
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