Bitcoin’s (BTC) price rally may have stalled lately, but bullish conviction certainly hasn’t, as whales continue to bet millions on an extended market rally.

Recently, one such whale executed a significant bullish options play targeting $200,000 by the year’s end. The strategy involved the simultaneous purchase of 3,500 contracts of the Deribit-listed $140,000 December call option and the short sale (or writing) of 3,500 contracts of the $200,000 December call option.

This complex trade, a bull call spread, resulted in an initial net debit of $23.7 million. As Deribit Insights noted, «The Dec 140-200k Call spread dominates, buying low Dec 140k IV, funded by higher IV 200k Calls.»

The strategy will achieve maximum profit if BTC settles at or above the higher strike price, $200,000 in this case, by the expiration date.

This strategy generates a net debit because the premium paid for the lower strike call option (the purchase) exceeds the premium received from selling the higher strike call. The spread offers limited gains for a limited risk, capping upside at $200,000 while ensuring the maximum potential loss is contained to the initial debit.

Options are derivatives used for speculation or hedging against price movements. A call option gives the purchaser the right, but not the obligation, to buy the underlying asset at a predetermined price on or before a specified future date. A call buyer is implicitly bullish on the market, while a put buyer is bearish.

Bitcoin’s spot price reached a record high of over $123,000 on July 14 and has since consolidated in a narrow range between $116,000 and $120,000.

Record options activity

BTC’s price rally and growing institutional interest in structured products, which involve volatility selling, have boosted activity in the options market.

On Deribit, which accounts for over 80% of the global options activity, the BTC options open interest, or the number of open options contracts, was 372,490 BTC as of writing – just shy of the record high of 377,892 set in June.

Meanwhile, open interest in ether options has hit a record high of 2,851,577 ETH, according to data source Amberdata. On Deribit, one options contract represents one BTC or ETH.

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is partnering with regulated prediction market Kalshi to bring its chatbot Grok into the world of real-money event forecasting, the companies said Thursday.

The collaboration will allow Grok to analyze news, historical data and economic indicators in real time to support users trading on Kalshi’s federally regulated platform. Kalshi traders can place bets on specific outcomes of events like Federal Reserve interest rate decisions, Senate control, or monthly inflation figures — making Grok’s ability to summarize information quickly a potential edge.

“Kalshi and xAI are partnering to bring Grok to prediction markets. Two of the fastest growing companies in America are now on the same team,” xAI said in a post on X.

The deal brings together Musk’s latest AI venture, known for its irreverent chatbot Grok, and Kalshi, the only U.S.-regulated prediction market that offers tradable event contracts. While details of how Grok will be integrated weren’t disclosed, Bloomberg previously reported (and then retracted) in May that both companies are committing “significant engineering resources” to the project.

The announcement also adds complexity to xAI and Musk’s broader prediction market strategy.

Earlier this year, xAI and X named Polymarket — an unregulated crypto-based competitor to Kalshi — as their official prediction market partner. Now, with Kalshi and Polymarket effectively operating in parallel under Musk’s orbit, the market appears to be a testing ground for Grok’s AI capabilities across different regulatory frameworks.

Grok’s most recent version, Grok 4, was unveiled earlier this month, promising major upgrades in reasoning and information retrieval.

Polkadot’s DOT staged a strong recovery after slumping as much as 7%, bouncing from $3.91 to $4.08 amid high trading volumes, according to CoinDesk Research’s technical analysis model.

The model showed that DOT navigated substantial price swings during the 24-hour period from July 23 19:00 to July 24 18:00, oscillating between $3.91 and $4.20 before settling at $4.08.

Earlier this week, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) withdrew its accelerated approval for a Bitwise crypto exchange-traded fund (ETF) that plans to include DOT among its top holdings by market cap.

The bounce in Polkadot came as the wider crypto market also rose, with the broader market gauge, the Coindesk 20, recently up 1.4%.

In recent trading, DOT was 2% lower over 24 hours, trading around $4.09.

Technical Analysis:

• Overall trading range of $0.28 representing 7% volatility between $4.20 maximum and $3.91 minimum.
• Critical support level established at $3.96 with high volume confirmation exceeding 4.28 million average.
• Resistance zone identified at $4.10 level showing price rejection patterns.
• Volume spike of 73,061 during decline phase indicating institutional selling pressure.
• Recovery pattern suggests potential continuation toward $4.13 target level.
• Net decline of 2% from opening despite strong bounce from overnight lows.

Disclaimer: Parts of this article were generated with the assistance from AI tools and reviewed by our editorial team to ensure accuracy and adherence to our standards. For more information, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy.