Market Wrap: Bitcoin Hits $10.7K; Options Market Likes Sub-$360 Ether

The ether options market is giving some investors protection from decentralized finance downsides.

Bitcoin trading around $10,653 as of 20:00 UTC. Gaining 3.3% over the previous 24 hours.

Thursday's bitcoin price pop came after several days of stagnation followed by a quick drop in tandem with equities Wednesday.

Momentum in the crypto market had been absent this week prior to bitcoin's rise Thursday, according to Denis Vinokourov, head of research for the digital assets prime broker Bequant.

"There has been a distinct lack of aggressive liquidations and the actual bitcoin futures curve has been flat for much of the month," he said.

Bitcoin has performed poorly compared to equities thus far in September, down 10.7% while the S&P 500 is in the red 7.9%. Major stock indexes in Europe and Asia are also treading below 0% month-to-date.

Bequant's Vinokourov points to decentralized finance, or DeFi, as contributing to the bitcoin market's lack of overall momentum.

Despite this, Vinokourov sees positive sentiment towards bitcoin's use in DeFi-based yield generation to eke out profits in slow market cycles.

"The use of bitcoin on the Ethereum network remains on a strong uptrend, with over 100,000 BTC now locked," he noted.

Ether options hedging DeFi.Ether, the second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, was up Thursday, trading around $346 and climbing 5.5% in 24 hours as of 20:00 UTC.The ether options market for October expiration seems to favor the cryptocurrency being priced below $360. Traders are betting there is a 50% chance of ether trading over $340 at next month's expiration, a 40% chance of it priced over $360, and just a 24% chance of it being over $400 according to data aggregator Skew.Vishal Shah, an options trader and founder of derivatives exchange Alpha5, said this market behavior signals smart investors are likely hedged on DeFi's risks.