Supported but unable to rise? The truth behind Bitcoin "stuck at $80,000" revealed

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Since last week, Bitcoin has challenged the $80,000 level several times but failed to break through. While it may appear to lack momentum on the surface, an "invisible force" from the derivatives market is secretly restraining the market's rally. On Deribit, the world's largest cryptocurrency options exchange, a massive concentration of "call options" at the $80,000 strike price is rapidly accumulating. This enormous volume of contracts forces market makers, who sit on the opposite side of these trades, to "sell" spot Bitcoin as the price rises to hedge their risk. This hedging strategy, known as "Long Gamma," acts as a "ceiling" suppressing the rally; the higher the price goes, the stronger the selling pressure becomes. Andy Baehr, Managing Director at GSR, noted: "Many speculators believe $80,000 is a relatively 'safe' high, so they are aggressively selling call options to collect premiums." He explained that market makers who buy these options must continuously sell Bitcoin to hedge, ultimately creating a price-suppression effect similar to an "electric grid." This market dynamic perfectly explains why Bitcoin has risen over 12% since the end of March yet has struggled to decisively break through $80,000. Traders generally believe that unless strong buying pressure emerges in the spot market, Bitcoin will likely find it difficult to overcome this barrier before these option positions expire. More awkwardly, the "retail frenzy" that pushed Bitcoin past $120,000 late last year has yet to return. On-chain data and platform metrics show that the retail army that fueled the "furious bull market" is now mostly on the sidelines, either digesting losses or waiting for clearer trend signals. Filling the void in the market now is institutional buying: Wall Street is actively deploying capital into cryptocurrencies and tokenized fund infrastructure, while Strategy continues to accumulate. In other words, the current Bitcoin market is "supported but lacks passion." In the absence of such passion, $80,000 is likely to remain a heavy resistance zone rather than a catalyst for the next leg of the rally. Furthermore, as the Bitcoin futures market remains bearish and spot demand slows, some traders have decided to sell more call options to earn premiums, betting that Bitcoin will not break through $80,000 in the short term. On Deribit, the $80,000 strike price call options have accumulated the highest open interest, with the majority of positions set to expire at the end of May and in June. According to Kaiko, out of a total of $1.5 billion in notional call open interest, $160 million worth of calls will expire on May 1, with another $566 million in contracts set to settle on May 29. As of the time of writing, the price of Bitcoin is still hovering around $77,000. Thomas Erdösi, Head of Product at CF Benchmarks, analyzed: "Looking at the May and June expiries, there is indeed a persistent trend of selling call options, along with signs of systematic rolling (closing near-term contracts and moving them to further-dated ones)." However, he added: "Option positioning is only one part of the market picture, and we have indeed observed significant profit-taking pressure near $80,000." Finally, volatility in traditional financial markets cannot be ignored. Bohan Jiang, a senior derivatives trader at crypto brokerage FalconX, warned that the recent increase in U.S. stock market volatility is bound to spill over into the cryptocurrency market. In summary, this means that Bitcoin's path toward $80,000 will see more stable price action. Investors should pay close attention to the fact that Bitcoin has been tracking the back-and-forth fluctuations of the U.S. stock market over the past few trading days.

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