Bitcoin Broke $75K. But Who's Actually Buying?

Bitcoin hit $75,800 this week. Before you call it a bull market, ask who's actually doing the buying.

In the early hours of Tuesday, March 17, Bitcoin punched through a resistance corridor between $73,750 and $74,400 that had turned back rallies three times since 2024. The CoinDesk 20 Index jumped 5% in 24 hours. Ether gained 8% to $2,360, XRP and Solana each climbed 8% and 4% respectively. On the surface, it looks like the crypto winter is finally thawing.

But the mechanics underneath tell a more complicated story.

The Rally Nobody Planned

Cast your mind back to early February. Bitcoin cratered, touching $60,000 on some exchanges, and traders rushed to buy put options — the crypto equivalent of flood insurance — at strike prices around $55,000 to $60,000. The message was clear: the market expected more pain.

Then the pain didn't come. As those put options approached expiry with Bitcoin trading well above the strike prices, they became essentially worthless. Holding them was costing money for nothing. So traders sold them off — fast.

That selling created a chain reaction. Markus Thielen, founder of 10x Research, explained it to clients this way: "The unwinding of these downside hedges has contributed to the latest bullish price action." When traders dump put options, the market makers who originally sold those contracts have to rebalance their books. To do that, they buy actual Bitcoin. That mechanical buying pushed prices higher, which triggered more short covering, which pushed prices higher still.

CoinDesk flagged this dynamic last week, warning that as prices approached $75,000, market maker hedging activity could accelerate the move. That's precisely what happened.

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What's Missing From This Rally

Here's the tell: there has been no significant surge in call option buying. Call options are how traders bet on — and profit from — upside. If the market truly believed this breakout was the start of something sustained, you'd expect aggressive call buying at $80,000, $90,000, or higher.

That hasn't materialized. Which means, as Thielen put it, "the move has so far been driven more by hedge unwinds than by aggressive bullish positioning."

Think of it this way: the price went up not because people decided Bitcoin was worth more, but because people decided their insurance was no longer worth paying for. That's a fundamentally different kind of rally — and a potentially more fragile one.

Institutional demand does provide some structural support. Michael Saylor's Strategy added another $1.57 billion in Bitcoin last week. Bitmine scooped up 60,999 ETH. Long-term holders, according to Bitwise's Matt Hougan, showed "diamond hands" through the 50% plunge from Bitcoin's all-time high. But institutional conviction and derivatives-driven momentum are two different engines.

Who Wins, Who Watches

For investors who bought near the February lows, this is a meaningful ~25% recovery — a genuine opportunity to reassess position sizing. For those eyeing a fresh entry above $75,000, the lack of call option conviction should give pause.

Altcoin holders are riding Bitcoin's coattails, which historically amplifies both the upside and the downside. Ether's move is getting some independent fuel from rising demand for bullish options bets, but most of the broader market lift is derivative of BTC's momentum.

The broader macro backdrop hasn't changed dramatically. U.S. rate policy remains uncertain, regulatory clarity on crypto in Washington is still incomplete, and the global risk appetite that drove Bitcoin to its all-time highs hasn't fully returned. The resistance zone that capped prices three times this year has now been cleared — but that's a necessary condition for a sustained rally, not a sufficient one.