Bitcoin’s spot price may be stabilizing, but underlying market signals continue to reflect caution, with investors dialing back leverage and volatility trending lower.
In its mid-March 2026 Bitcoin ChainCheck report, VanEck pointed to record demand for downside protection, noting that traders are paying unprecedented premiums to hedge against further declines.
The report found that bitcoin’s 30-day average price fell 19% from the previous period, while realized volatility declined from around 80 to just above 50. Futures funding rates also dropped to 2.7% from 4.1%, suggesting a slowdown in speculative, leveraged activity.
Options markets echo the same defensive tone. The put/call open interest ratio averaged 0.77 and peaked at 0.84—its highest level since June 2021, during the China Bitcoin mining crackdown.
Over the past 30 days, traders spent roughly $685 million on put options, while call premiums fell 12% to about $562 million. Relative to spot trading volumes, put premiums climbed to around 4 basis points—an all-time high in VanEck’s data.
According to the report, this level is roughly three times higher than what was observed in mid-2022 following the Terra/Luna collapse and the Ethereum staking liquidity crisis.
Despite the elevated bearish positioning, VanEck noted that such extremes have historically coincided with market inflection points rather than prolonged downturns. Over the past six years, similar spikes in options skew have been followed by average bitcoin gains of 13% over 90 days and 133% over 360 days.
The report also highlighted that on-chain activity remains subdued, while miner selling pressure continues to be relatively limited.
