Bitcoin’s (BTC) rally is gaining momentum, with institutions stepping up their exposure to the leading cryptocurrency through Deribit’s BTC options market.

«Panning out over just the last week shows a much bigger sign of institutional positioning on BTC,» Deribit said on X Friday, noting the bullish flows in the BTC options.

The exchange has seen robust buying of call options at the $110,000 strike expiring in June and July and calendar spreads involving a long position in the $140,000 strike call expiring at the end of September and a short position in the $170,000 strike call expiring at the end of the year.

The demand for the $110,000 strike call indicates expectations for a continued price rise in the coming weeks, with potential for an extended rise to at least $140,000.

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 specific date. A call buyer is implicitly bullish on the market.

The exchange added that the bullish flows also included a roll over of long positions in May expiry to July expiries at strikes ranging from $110,000 to $115,000.

CoinDesk data show BTC topped $104,000 Thursday, marking a near 40% recovery from the early April lows under $75,000, amid optimism from the U.S.-U.K. trade deal and consistent inflows into the spot ETFs. Technical charts point to more gains ahead.

Ether, the native token of Ethereum’s blockchain, has risen over 30% to $2,411 in two days, marking a bullish breakout on technical charts. The development has triggered interest in bullish ETH plays on Deribit, with traders snapping up the June expiry calls at $2,400 and longer duration call spreads betting on gains up to $2,600-$2,800.

Japanese hotel firm Metaplanet (3350) said it plans to sell another $21.25 million worth of bonds to fund further bitcoin (BTC) purchases.

The Tokyo-based firm agreed to issue the debt to EVO FUND on May 9, making it the third such sale in the space of a week, following two issues of $25 million each.

The bonds will not bear any interest and have a redemption date of Nov. 9, Metaplanet announced in a post on X on Friday.

The firm’s bitcoin stash currently sits at 5,555 BTC ($576 million), the 11th largest holding among publicly-traded companies and the largest of firms outside North America.

Metaplanet shares closed 2.75% higher on Friday at 524 yen ($3.61), outperforming the Nikkei 225 which gained 1.56%.

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A Florida-based pharmaceutical distributor is backing XRP as a treasury and payments asset, putting the token at the center of a $50 million financing deal.

Wellgistics Health (WGRX) said Thursday it had secured an equity line of credit to support XRP-based reserves and infrastructure for real-time payments.

The company plans to use the blockchain to settle transactions across its pharmacy network, manage vendor payouts, and issue credit lines backed by XRP.

The move makes Wellgistics one of the few publicly listed U.S. firms to actively integrate XRP into its financial operations. XRP will help eliminate banking delays and lower settlement costs of fractions of a cent, two key resistance points in pharmaceutical supply chains.

“We believe that there are certain advantages to integrating XRP and its related infrastructure into its healthcare ecosystem,” the firm said in the release.

“XRP settles transactions in 3-5 seconds vs. 1-3 days for ACH or wire transfers, allowing for near real-time settlement among pharmacies, suppliers, and manufacturers. All transactions are logged on the XRP Ledger for real-time compliance, rebate tracking, and auditability,” it said, adding that the token will help process global vendor payouts at very low foreign exchange rates.

The credit facility is being provided by New York-based LDA Capital. No timeline was provided for the XRP-based services would actually begin.