Crypto Options Explained: Why Market Data Is Your Edge

Trading crypto options is like playing chess with the market. Spot traders move piece by piece, responding to the board as it stands. Options traders, however, play several moves ahead, pricing probabilities, weighing volatility, and hedging against risk. But in chess, you can’t see the whole board without a clear view. For crypto options, that “board” is data: Greeks, implied volatility, order books, and trades. Without it, every move is a guess.

What Are Crypto Options?

A crypto option is a financial derivative that gives traders the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a cryptocurrency at a fixed price (the strike) before a set date.

• Call option → Right to buy at strike price.
• Put option → Right to sell at strike price.

They’re used for:

• Speculation: Betting on volatility and direction.
• Hedging: Protecting positions in spot or futures markets.
• Income strategies: Selling options to collect premiums.

Unlike spot markets, options are complex because they don’t just depend on price; they hinge on time, volatility, and liquidity.

Many traders looking to generate yield with BTC experiment with strategies like cash-secured puts, covered calls, option wheels, or even cash-and-carry futures. Deribit is still the go-to venue thanks to its liquidity and APIs, but reliance on a single exchange raises concentration risk. Alternative venues like Binance, OKX, or Bybit offer additional access, though liquidity is thinner.

This highlights two realities: options income strategies require precise Greeks, IV, and OI data, and professionals want multi-exchange visibility for diversification. CoinAPI solves both challenges by unifying real-time and historical options data across all major exchanges in a single API.

The Core Data Behind Crypto Options

To trade or research crypto options effectively, you need more than just price charts. The data stack looks like this:

1. Greeks

The Greeks are sensitivity measures that show how an option’s value reacts to different factors:

• Delta → How much the option price moves if the underlying coin moves $1.
• Gamma → The rate of change of Delta.
• Theta → Time decay (value lost as expiry approaches).
• Vega → Sensitivity to volatility.

Want to understand how price candles differ from options Greeks? Check out our guide on

Understanding OHLCV in market data analysis.

2. Implied Volatility (IV)

IV reflects the market’s forecast of future volatility. Traders use it to gauge whether options are cheap or expensive.

3. Open Interest & Volume

• Open interest → Number of contracts still active.
• Volume → Contracts traded in a day.

4. Order Book Data

Level 2 (aggregated bids/asks) and Level 3 (individual orders) help traders see liquidity pockets and execution risks.

Order book depth is critical for options execution. If you’re new to this, read our explainer:

Level 1 vs Level 2 vs Level 3 market data: How to read the crypto order book.

Sample Crypto Options Data Snapshot

Here’s a simplified snapshot of BTC options data:

1{ "symbol_id": "DERIBIT_OPT_BTC_USD_250823_115000_P", "exchange_id": "DERIBIT", "symbol_type": "OPTION", "asset_id_base": "BTC", "asset_id_quote": "USD", "option_type_is_call": false, "option_strike_price": 115000, "option_contract_unit": 1, "option_exercise_style": "EUROPEAN", "option_expiration_time": "2025-08-23T08:00:00.0000000Z", "volume_1mth": 170.5, "symbol_id_exchange": "BTC-23AUG25-115000-P", "asset_id_base_exchange": "BTC", "asset_id_quote_exchange": "USD", "price_precision": 0.0001, "size_precision": 0.1 }

How to Retrieve It via curl

1curl -X GET "<https://rest.coinapi.io/v1/symbols/DERIBIT?filter_symbol_id=DERIBIT_OPT_BTC_USD_250823_115000_P>" \\
2  -H "X-CoinAPI-Key: YOUR_API_KEY"

This call returns the metadata for the specific BTC put option expiring 23-Aug-2025 at strike 115,000 on Deribit.

How to Read This:

• symbol_id → The normalized identifier across CoinAPI for this instrument. This normalization saves days of engineering work per exchange feed.
• option_type_is_call: false → This is a put option.
• option_strike_price: 115000 → The strike is $115,000.
• option_expiration_time: 2025-08-23 → Expiry date is 23 August 2025.
• option_contract_unit: 1 → Each contract controls 1 BTC.
• volume_1mth: 170.5 → About 170 contracts traded in the past month.
• price_precision: 0.0001 → Prices quoted with four decimal precision.

Exchanges report options data differently. Learn why consistency matters in our post: Why is it critical to normalize cryptocurrency trade data?

Community Insights: The State of Crypto Options

Market participants frequently point out that Deribit is the most liquid venue for crypto options, especially for BTC and ETH. However, access is restricted in some regions, and liquidity outside of Bitcoin remains relatively thin. Traders often resort to indirect proxies such as BITO, BITX, or equity names like MSTR, MARA, and RIOT to gain options exposure linked to crypto markets. Others use products like the Purpose Bitcoin ETF (BTCC.B) in Canada, which offers weekly options, to run strategies like covered calls or diagonals.

This shows how fragmented and region-specific access to crypto options still is. Liquidity may be strong for Bitcoin, but altcoin options are limited, and institutional traders often rely on ETF-based products for diversified exposure. This environment reinforces why unified, exchange-normalized data feeds are critical, so you don’t have to cobble together different sources or rely on indirect products.

Common Pitfalls in Crypto Options Trading

1. Fragmented coverage – Deribit dominates, but Binance, OKX, and Bybit also have growing options markets. Pulling data from each exchange separately is messy.
2. Inconsistent formats – One exchange reports Greeks differently from another.
3. Latency issues – Options move fast; stale data means mispricing.
4. Incomplete datasets – Without order books and trades tied to options, strategies fall apart.

When milliseconds make the difference, latency matters. See our deep dive: How Fast is Fast Enough? Understanding Latency in Crypto Trading with CoinAPI.

How CoinAPI Solves These Problems

With CoinAPI’s Market Data API, traders and developers get:

1. Unified options coverage
   • Deribit, Binance, OKX, and Bybit in one schema.
2. Normalized Greeks and IV
   • No need to remap exchange-specific quirks.
3. Full market depth (L2/L3)
   • Reconstruct the order book for execution modeling.
4. Real-time + historical options data
   • REST for backtesting, WebSocket/FIX for live trading.
5. Flat Files for bulk research
   • Download options: tick/trade/order book archives for quant analysis.

Coverage Depth: All Strikes, All Expiries

CoinAPI ingests full options chains across supported venues, which means you’re not limited to “top strikes” or near expiries. Every maturity, every strike, every listed option is included, updated tick-by-tick. Historical depth goes back to when each exchange first launched options trading, so you can backtest from market inception, not just the last few months.

CoinAPI Options Coverage at a Glance

Feature What CoinAPI Offers Supported Venues Deribit, Binance Options, OKX, Bybit Instruments All strikes, maturities, calls & puts Data Types Trades, Quotes, L2/L3 Order Books Analytics Greeks, Implied Volatility, Delta, Vega, Theta Metrics Open Interest, volumes, put/call ratios Real-Time WebSocket & FIX (sub-100ms latency) Historical REST queries + Flat Files (bulk S3 access) Normalization Unified schema across all exchanges

CoinAPI vs Other Options Data Providers

Takeaway: If you want complete, normalized, low-latency options data for building trading systems, CoinAPI is the only vendor delivering full coverage beyond Deribit. Competitors either restrict to a single venue (Kaiko) or wrap data into analytics platforms (Amberdata).

Strategic Use Cases for Crypto Options Data

When to use crypto options data and what to focus on:

• Algo traders → Stream IV + Greeks for volatility arbitrage.
• Market makers → Monitor L3 order books for liquidity and hedging.
• Hedge funds → Backtest strategies with historical tick-level options data.
• Risk managers → Track open interest and volume shifts for systemic risk signals.

Example: Tracking Market Sentiment

Market sentiment often shows up in how open interest and volume shift between calls and puts. Here’s a simplified snapshot:

How to read this:

• A ratio below 1 suggests bullish sentiment (more calls than puts).
• Around 1 is neutral.
• Above 1 suggests bearish positioning.

With CoinAPI, you can pull these metrics directly; no need to stitch together exchange feeds manually.

Quick Reference Table

Frequently Asked Questions About CoinAPI Options Data

Do you provide Greeks and implied volatility beyond Deribit?

Yes. Greeks (Delta, Vega, Theta, Gamma) and implied volatility are included across all supported venues - Deribit, Binance, OKX, and Bybit, and standardized into one schema.

How far back does the historical data go?

We provide full tick-level archives back to the launch of each exchange’s options market: Deribit (2016), Binance (2020), OKX (2021), and Bybit (2022). All are accessible through our Flat Files (S3) or REST API.

What is the pricing for options data?

Options data is available starting from the Professional plan. Most teams begin at around a few hundred USD per month, depending on volume. Enterprise pricing is available for desks requiring higher throughput or SLAs.

Do you publish uptime and SLA benchmarks?

Yes. CoinAPI’s real-time infrastructure consistently delivers sub-100ms latency, and enterprise plans include published uptime metrics and formal SLAs covering latency, throughput, and availability.

Conclusion: Seeing the Whole Board

Crypto options aren’t just another trading instrument; they’re a layer of strategy built on probabilities and volatility. But to play the game well, you need the full board in view. That means real-time Greeks, IV, order books, and trades, not fragmented, stale data.

CoinAPI delivers that edge with normalized, low-latency options data across multiple exchanges.

Ready to put crypto options data to work? Explore our Market Data API or request a demo today.

Options are one part of the derivatives stack. To compare with perpetual futures, read our post: Crypto Futures Explained: Understanding Perpetual Contracts.