Solana Whales Bet on Price Drop: Put Options Spike Before Token Unlock

• An upcoming Solana token unlock has triggered a reaction from whales.
• SOL whales are betting on Put Options for safety.
• Deribit recorded $32.39 million in SOL block trades last week.

An upcoming Solana token unlock event has triggered a reaction from SOL whales, who are taking positions to protect themselves from potential losses. According to reports , several big Solana holders are placing bets on SOL put options in the options market, acting as insurance against a potential Solana price slump.

Crypto options exchange Deribit reportedly saw a significant $32.39 million in SOL block trades last week. That’s nearly 25% of their entire options volume! Market watchers say these large block trades are a tell-tale sign of whale activity in the options market. 

It means these major players are trading SOL options to either protect themselves or profit from a possible downturn in Solana’s price.

Put Options Dominate Whale Strategy for Solana

Meanwhile, data from Amberdata, a platform providing blockchain network insights, shows that whales funneled almost 80% of their SOL block trades into Put Options. 

To put this in perspective, Put Options only accounted for 40% of BTC trades and 37.5% of ETH trades during the same period.

Related: As Solana and XRP Face Further Uncertainty, Remittix Is Building Momentum In The $190T Payments Market

Token Unlock Looms, Analysts Predict Selling Pressure

Solana slated its next token unlock for March 1, and analysts expect the event to impact SOL’s price. 

One such analyst, Lin Chen, Deribit’s Head of Business Development for Asia, expects the Solana token unlock to trigger significant selling pressure for SOL. 

Massive Token Release Fuels Bearish Whale Bets

Here’s the breakdown: Solana plans to release 11.2 million SOL tokens into the market. That’s 2.29% of the total SOL supply, and get this, it’s roughly 59% of SOL’s daily spot trading volume. 

Chen thinks this anticipated flood of tokens hitting the market is what has prompted whales to snap up SOL Put Options, as a way to hedge against further price drops. 

SOL Price Already Feeling the Pressure

As all this unfolds, SOL’s price has already started to slide, dropping 7% in early Monday trading. 

Related: Solana Dip: Binance Buys, But Should You? (Price Analysis)

The cryptocurrency broke below notable resistance at $169.22 and traded for $158.47 at the time of writing. SOL could drop further unless the bulls intervene and the support at $155.01 holds.