Report archive · 21.09.2026

INDICIA Radar

Case No. 20260921 · 21.09.2026

The break lasted exactly one dayand the tilt came back while the ratio fell to its lowest in a week.

Case #20260921 · 21.09.2026 05:26 UTC · BTC $81,301 / ETH $2,659 · analysis: Opus 5 by Anthropic

📅YESTERDAY

Sunday's 20.09 expiry settled at 08:00 UTC, and the market-maker break-even corridor held in both assets — one day after Saturday broke it in both. From max pain BTC diverged 1.0% and ETH 0.6%.

Case registry: four new whale cases over the day and one closed with a score — 726 closed against 725.

⚡THE GIST

• Yesterday's break didn't survive a day: the whales added on both sides, and the net short tilt in BTC grew again, from $366M to $379M, in ETH from $429M to $444M.

• The long side grew faster than the short one: the short-to-long ratio in BTC fell from 2.4 to 2.2 times, in ETH from 2.5 to 2.2.

• Near-dated insurance is getting dearer for a second day: BTC two-day vol sits in the 50th percentile of its own history against the 26th yesterday and the 13th the day before. Forty days out it is still in the 12th — the market pays for the coming days, not for the month.

• The extra charge for downside protection is back: BTC skew +1.5 against −0.7 yesterday. Our fear-and-greed index stands at 79 out of 100 against 89.

• For the first time in a week there is more fuel above than below: $96.8M of short positions above BTC against $66.2M of longs under the market.

• Verdict — continuation ⟳: the short tilt resumed growing, even though both sides are being built at the same time.

• 📊 Our Polygon — Pendulum: standing position, +$90 on the day, +$9,642 in total since 11.05.

• 📊 Our Polygon — signals: best — Dust Strategy V2 +$86,219 at a 5% win rate · worst — Wheel Trail V8 −$8,787. Table at the bottom.

🐋WHALES: WHAT CHANGED — three arenas

Arena one — Hyperliquid futures. Both sides were adding, and almost all of it overnight.
In BTC the short side grew over the day from $628M to $701M while the long side grew from $262M to $322M: the ratio fell from 2.4 to 2.2 times (how we track whale positions).
In ETH the short went from $714M to $799M and the long from $285M to $355M, so the tilt ratio fell from 2.5 to 2.2.
The main shift came after midnight: over the last six hours of the snapshot the BTC short side added about $40M. The net tilt toward short grew in both assets, yet the ratio fell — because the longs grew faster.
Overleveraged whales number 63 against 62 yesterday, longs at 52% of them. Not one sits at the edge of a forced close, but among the biggest positions there is now a new short at 40× leverage whose forced-close line stands only 4% above the market.

Arena two — Deribit options. The blocks look up, the quiet footprint goes both ways.
Over two days the snapshot recognised 23 structures in BTC and 3 in ETH — the block market is only waking up after the weekend (what a block is). The most visible in BTC are two spreads on calls for a capped rise, more than a thousand contracts between them.
Quiet accumulation in small lots outside the blocks split in BTC: the week's two biggest footprints are call-side above the market, the third a put below it. In ETH it is the other way round — two of the three footprints are puts, the biggest of them below the market.
The registry took in four new cases, all in bitcoin: three structures on calls with split expiry dates and one on tomorrow's expiry.

Arena three — money at the exchange border. The week stays an inflow, but again there are no fresh entries.
Over seven days $99.8M of ether and $74.4M of USDC cash came into the exchange, while $79.4M of BTC left against $10.0M brought in. With all coins together, $196.6M came in against $145.6M out.
The border snapshot refreshes once a day and stops on the morning of 20.09 — a third day running we see this channel with roughly a day's lag.

This is positioning, not a direction forecast.

🧭CROSS-CHECK — five camps of witnesses

What the funds are doing. Spot ETFs are the only camp that measures purchases of the coin itself, not a leveraged position.
The latest figures are Friday's, 18.09: $433M went into the BTC funds and $144M into the ETH funds. Monday's numbers appear only in the evening.
The week of 14–18.09 closed almost flat in BTC, +$6M against −$288M the week before; in ETH −$140M against +$224M.
This camp is silent: three days without new figures, and Friday's picture is older than everything the whales did over the weekend.

What the options market says. This camp measures one thing: what insurance costs on Deribit.
BTC skew +1.5 against −0.7 yesterday: over the day the market started paying extra for downside protection again (what skew is). In ETH the tilt is close to zero, −0.3.
Near-dated insurance is getting dearer: BTC two-day vol sits in the 50th percentile of its own hourly history since February against the 26th yesterday, and the four-day in the 48th (what implied vol is).
Forty days out it is still in the 12th percentile, near the floor, while the premium over the actual move in BTC is +2.6.
Our fear-and-greed index stands at 79 out of 100 against 89 in yesterday's snapshot.
This confirms the whales: the options side is paying for a fall again exactly as the whales' short tilt resumed growing.

What the futures say. This camp measures who pays whom to hold a position.
BTC funding on Hyperliquid is +0.010% in eight-hour terms and +0.009% on Binance; in ETH the same (what funding is). Longs have been paying shorts in both assets for a third day, and the rate is holding at yesterday's level.
This contradicts the whales: a leveraged long still costs more to hold — demand for the long side did not disappear when the whales' short grew.

What the crowd is doing. This camp measures how retail accounts stand against the whales.
On Bybit perps 52% of BTC accounts stand long, as yesterday, and 66% in ETH against 65% yesterday.
The gap between the crowd and the whales in BTC is 19.8 points against 21.9 yesterday — a third day of compression, and over three days it has closed by 8.7 points.
That is the 3rd percentile of the month: the two sides have not stood this close once in the last month. In ETH the gap is 35.5 points, unmoved.
This confirms the whales: it is compressing not because retail changed its mind, but because the whales themselves bought the long side.

Any signs of stress. This camp measures whether anyone has already been forced out of the market.
Among the top Hyperliquid whales, not one forced closure over the day. On OKX swaps $2.5M was liquidated, 95% of it shorts — 24% of the whole week's volume, so the day came out roughly twenty times louder than yesterday's.
This contradicts the whales: the positions forced shut were shorts, and the pace grew over the day.

Again: this is positioning, not a direction forecast.

🌡ALTSEASON — the classic and our barometer

The classic altseason index stands at 39.5 out of 100 against 43.2 in yesterday's snapshot — bitcoin territory.

Our barometer watches money, not prices: open interest, funding and retail come from Bybit perps, the whales from the Hyperliquid registry. Alts' share of open interest is 43.6% — $5.31B of $12.20B, almost unchanged.

Alt contracts with funding hotter than bitcoin's make up 80% of open interest against 3% yesterday. The bar here is BTC's own funding: yesterday it jumped and devalued every alt, today it came back down. This scale swings every day, so it makes sense only alongside funding itself.

Retail in the top-10 coins stands 65.9% long; the hottest are DOGE and XRP, at 77% each.

Whales in alts are structurally short: 31.2% long across $1.49B of positions, the biggest of them HYPE. That gap itself is permanent, the signal is in its CHANGE — over the day it barely moved.

Full barometer: indiciadesk.com/en/altseason

⚖️VERDICT OF THE DAY

continuation ⟳ — yesterday's cut in the short lasted exactly one day: over the day the whales added $73M of short and $60M of long in bitcoin, and the net tilt grew again. The same in ether. The ratio between the sides meanwhile fell to its lowest in a week, because the longs were added faster. Witnesses: options and the crowd side with the whales; funding and liquidations go against them; the funds are silent.

What this does NOT mean. This is not a claim that the market goes down. When both sides are built at the same time, that is closer to larger positions at both edges than to a shared view. The nearest test is Friday's quarterly on 25.09: 188,901 contracts in BTC and 763,907 in ETH, with max pain on both 10–15% below the market.

🔒In today's full RADAR:

— the new 40× short whose forced-close line stands 4% above the market: how much it added over the day and what is left in its account;

— the case the registry has already closed in the green although its expiry only settles this morning, with spot standing right on the sold strike.

ANALYST access → indiciadesk.com/en/agent

💎DEEP

🔒WHALES IN DETAIL 💠

Portraits from the Hyperliquid registry, snapshot 04:46 UTC at BTC $81,455 and ETH $2,668. Nicknames aren't treated as identification.

The market's biggest loss. ETH SHORT $274.5M, leverage 5×, entry $2,297, uPnL −$38.1M against −$29.0M yesterday, liquidation at $3,391 — 27% above spot against 33% yesterday. The coin count hasn't changed for a fourth day.
The same address in BTC. SHORT $171.9M, leverage 5×, entry $72,731, uPnL −$18.4M, liquidation at $117,023 (+44%). Not a single new coin here either.
A second address with the same pattern. ETH SHORT $191.5M and BTC SHORT $111.1M, both at 5× leverage, uPnL −$25.9M and −$13.8M, liquidations at $3,598 and $131,178. Together the two addresses carry $96.2M of unrealised loss against $77.0M yesterday, and margin across the two accounts slimmed from $178.6M to $161.7M.
The new short at the edge. BTC SHORT $70.3M, leverage 40×, entry $80,181, uPnL −$1.1M, liquidation at $84,465 — only 4% above spot. A week ago the position did not exist; over the day 363 BTC were added against an account of $3.7M. Exactly this profile ended two days ago, for a different address, in the loss of most of the account.
The 25× short, grown for a third day running. BTC SHORT $104.1M against $95.2M yesterday, leverage up from 20× to 25×, average entry $79,364, liquidation at $88,687 — 9% above spot, account $13.7M. The same address grew its ether short to $73.6M from $55.9M yesterday — at 25× from $2,558, with liquidation 12% above spot.
The biggest bitcoin long. LONG $108.6M, 3× leverage from $78,057, uPnL +$4.5M. The account slimmed from $123.1M to $104.0M — about $19M was taken out of it, the position untouched.
The long out of the rally is back in the green. LONG $87.2M, 1,070 BTC from $80,606 at 20×: uPnL +$908k against −$238k yesterday, liquidation at $63,855 (−22%), account $9.1M.
The ether longs. ETH LONG $80.8M at 20× from $2,134, uPnL +$16.1M — the market's biggest gain. The risky ETH LONG at 25× now holds about 34,800 coins ($92.8M) against roughly 25,900 yesterday, and the average entry rose from $2,524 to $2,563: it was added to at higher prices, while over the last day the registry records a cut of 2,325 coins. Liquidation at $2,539 — 5% below spot, account $7.1M.
The third big ether short. ETH SHORT $60.0M at 25× from $2,414, uPnL −$5.7M, liquidation at $4,523 (+70%). The account slimmed from $54.1M to $48.1M.
Fragility. 63 overleveraged whales against 62 yesterday, $1.19B of positions together, 52% of them longs. Not one sits near a margin call.

Cases in the registry — four new over the day, one closed with a score.
Case #1091 · ETH bear call spread: 1,000 calls at $2,660 sold, 1,000 calls at $2,700 bought, expiry today, Monday 21.09.2026 — 2,000 contracts, entered at $2,618. The registry has already closed it as confirmed, at about +$5.5k for the whale. But the expiry settles at 08:00 UTC and spot stands a dollar from the sold strike: $2,659 against $2,660. The settlement price will give the final sum, and we will update it.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-21. Кит отримав $5k премії. Беззбитковість: $2 665.

Case #1097 · BTC call diagonal: 20 calls at $79,000 sold for Friday 25.09.2026, 20 calls at $90,000 bought for Friday 30.10.2026 — 40 contracts, entered at $81,301, new. Net premium about 0.43 BTC received (≈$35k): the sold leg is already in the money, the bought one far out of it and a month further away.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-25. Кит отримав $35k премії. Беззбитковість: $80 764.

Case #1096 · BTC call ratio spread: 20 calls at $82,000 bought and 40 calls at $83,000 sold with expiry tomorrow, Tuesday 22.09.2026 — 60 contracts, entered at $81,301. Net premium about 0.008 BTC paid (≈$650): the whale gains on a moderate rise and starts losing if the market clears $83,000 with room to spare.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-22. Кит заплатив $650 премії. Беззбитковість: $82 029 і $83 967.

Case #948 · ETH condor for the quarterly: 2,750 puts at $1,700 bought, 2,750 puts at $1,900 sold, 3,000 calls at $2,800 sold, 3,000 calls at $3,000 bought, expiry Friday 25.09.2026 — 11,500 contracts, entered at $2,462, day 27. Net premium about 36.8 ETH received (≈$91k). Spot $2,659 sits inside the winning zone, 5% from its upper edge, four days from expiry.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-25. Кит отримав $91k премії. Беззбитковість: $1 867 і $2 830.

Case #1080 · BTC risk reversal: 100 calls at $70,000 sold and 100 puts at $70,000 bought, expiry Friday 30.10.2026 — a synthetic short from $70,000, premium about 8.22 BTC received (≈$624k), sixth day. From the $75,860 entry spot has moved 7.2% against this position.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-10-30. Кит отримав $624k премії. Беззбитковість: $76 236.

Also new: #1094 and #1095 — two BTC call diagonals with legs deep in the money and split expiry dates, 300 and 100 contracts; for the two together the whale paid about 0.37 BTC (≈$30k).
ΔOI over the week, both ways: BTC +2,881 calls at $82,000 and +2,412 at $83,000 against +2,626 puts at $74,000. ETH: +15,501 puts at $2,500 and +9,525 at $2,600 against +10,794 calls at $2,800.

🔬Who exactly

Both of the biggest shorts are Abraxas Capital Mgmt (Heka Funds): for a fourth day the firm hasn't moved its positions in coins, while the unrealised loss grew over the day from $77.0M to $96.2M. Margin across the two accounts is $161.7M against $178.6M yesterday — the market is eating the collateral, not the position.

The 25× BTC short, grown for a third day running, and the ether short of the same address are self-labelled VBVIT; nicknames aren't treated as identification.

The third big ether short is Fasanara Capital.

The risky 25× ether long belongs to Machi Big Brother: account $7.1M against a $92.8M position.

The new 40× short with its line 4% above the market, the biggest bitcoin long, the long out of the rally and the market's biggest gain are addresses without a public label.

Money by address. In the weekly snapshot the coin channel sent out $79.4M of BTC, the largest tranches to Wintermute; the BTC coming back in came mostly from Binance. Over the last day the available snapshot shows only small USDC transfers to OKX.

🔒THE WEEK'S DYNAMICS 🔬

Perps. BTC: net $379M short (long $322M against short $701M), $13M toward short over the day, $64M over seven days. ETH: net $444M short (long $355M against $799M), about $15M toward short over the day, $195M over the week.

Gamma flip. BTC across all expiries $71,049 against $71,234 yesterday, spot 14% above it (what the flip is). ETH $2,245, spot 18% above. Over the week the call wall rose by $2,000 and the put wall fell by $2,000 — protection is spreading apart in both directions.

The price of fear. On the weekly window the premium is +0.3 (DVOL 35.2 against the actual weekly HV 34.9) against minus 2.7 yesterday — for the first time in a week it is positive, and over seven days it rose by 3.5. The market is charging for fear again.

Changing of the guard. Over the week the whales assembled 221 confirmed structures: 56 bullish, 63 bearish, 27 on volatility, 75 on range — a fifth day with more bearish than bullish, but the edge stays inside ten.

🔒CROSS-CHECK IN DETAIL 💠

BTC levels. Everything below comes from Deribit options open interest. The market-maker break-even corridor is $79,000–$82,000 against $78,000–$81,000 yesterday — it rose behind spot, and spot stands in its top third; by our study across 394 expiries price stays inside such a corridor in roughly 82% of cases (what the corridor is). Max pain on the combined two-exchange open interest is $80,750, on Deribit alone $80,500 (what max pain is).

Today, Monday 21.09. BTC 3,486 contracts — a thin expiry: put wall $79,500 on 262, call wall $83,000 on 557 (what the walls are). ETH 44,626 contracts, max pain $2,610 on the combined open interest and $2,600 on Deribit; put wall $2,600 on 2,919, call wall $2,640 on 3,307 — spot stands above both of them.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 22.09. BTC 1,966 contracts, ETH 18,610 — thin again.

ETH levels. The corridor is $2,500–$2,680, spot in its upper part; max pain $2,600.

The quarterly, Friday 25.09. BTC: 188,901 contracts, max pain $73,000 both on Deribit and on the combined open interest — 10% below spot; densest are the $70,000 put (8,609) and the $70,000 call (10,866). ETH: 763,907 contracts, max pain $2,250 on the combined two-exchange open interest and $2,200 on Deribit alone — 15% below spot; put $2,100 on 36,815, call $3,000 on 34,689.

Fuel. Above BTC $96.8M of short positions in the $83,084–85,527 band against $66.2M of longs under the market in the $77,382–79,826 band — for the first time in a week it is heavier above. In ETH it is the other way round: $110.2M of long fuel below the market in the $2,534–2,614 band against $40.4M of short fuel above it. This is about the RANGE of a move for the same push, not about a higher probability of that move (what the fuel map is).

Gamma vacuum. In BTC it is empty above at $86,000–$88,000 and below at $73,000–$74,000. In ETH it is empty on both sides: $2,700–$2,750 above and $2,500–$2,550 below.

Stress test ±2%. On a 2% fall both assets stay in positive gamma — dealers damp the move. On a 2% rise both BTC and ETH pass their nearest call wall, and the damping on the way up weakens.

OI flow. BTC put/call across all expiries: month 0.56 · week 0.56 · now 0.56; ETH 0.53 · 0.53 · 0.53 — both stable (what put/call is).

Two options venues. On the same expiries up to 30 days BTC put/call is 0.55 on Deribit against 1.25 on Bybit; ETH 0.62 against 0.89. We don't know who owns the Bybit positions, so this is neither "whales" nor "retail" — just a second venue with a different lean.

IV by tenor. BTC 2d P37/C40 · 4d P38/C41 · 39d P36/C34, percentiles since February 50th, 48th and 12th. ETH 2d P53/C58 · 4d P54/C57 · 39d P51/C52, percentiles 57th, 50th and 33rd. BTC DVOL 35.4 against 30-day realised 32.8 — premium +2.6; ETH DVOL 52.3 with HV 49.8, premium +2.5 (what the premium is).

💎SCENARIOS IN DETAIL 💠

The code's verdicts for yesterday. There are no new verdicts: the three scenarios from 19.09 ran out at 05:33 UTC, seven minutes after our snapshot, so the code scores them today and we will show that tomorrow. The three from 20.09 run until tomorrow. The week since 14.09: 21 scenarios — 5 confirmed, 1 partially, 3 not, 6 cancelled at their cancellation levels, 6 still running. All-time: squeeze up 10 of 30, corridor 9 of 26 plus 6 partial, slide into the long fuel 5 of 19 — the directional types do worse than a coin toss.

The corridor holds — 45%. ⏱ 2 days, to Wednesday 23.09. BTC stays between the fuel bands, $79,850–$83,050 (levels rounded to the band edges). Cancellation level: a touch of $77,350 — the bottom of the long-fuel band.

Squeeze up through the short fuel — 30%. ⏱ 2 days, to Wednesday 23.09. Trigger: a touch of $83,050 — the edge of the band of short positions. Cancellation level: a touch of $79,850.

Slide into the long fuel — 25%. ⏱ 2 days, to Wednesday 23.09. Trigger: a touch of $79,850 — the edge of the band of long positions. Cancellation level: a touch of $83,050.

This is how we weigh the odds — not a promise; the code will compute the verdict from spot history.

🔭WHAT TO WATCH

• This evening: the first spot-ETF figures after the weekend — for four days the market has moved without this witness (💠).

• The new 40× short with its line 4% above the market and the 25× short with its line 9% above: both grown over the day, both on thin accounts (🔬).

• BTC two-day vol in the 50th percentile against the 12th forty days out: the market pays for the coming days, and that is exactly where the quarterly sits (💠).

🆓TAIL

📊POLYGON

(our own signals at real prices, not a backtest)

⚙️Pendulum · Wheel (standing position, real prices)

+$90 on the day · +$9,642 in total · since 11.05.2026

⭐ Top-5 signals ($1,000 per signal; "total" is the sum of all trades, not the return on a single thousand):

signal                    trades   win    last     total  since
Dust Strategy V2              43    5% −$1,125  +$86,219  21.03
Dust Strategy V1              34    9% −$1,125  +$33,656  20.03
Volatility Convergence V3     30   40%   −$759  +$12,440  26.05
Skew 2.0 V2                   41   37%   −$775  +$10,606  26.05
Fear Flash V2                 22   32%   −$418   +$3,023  16.05

Deepest in the red: Wheel Trail V8 −$8,787 · Wheel Trail V6 −$7,718 · Wheel Trail V7 −$6,179 — three variants of one signal that hunts a reversal and pays for every attempt while the trend runs. Not a single trade closed in the top five over the day: the last one was on Saturday. The most profitable signal wins only 5% of its 43 trades. Win rate isn't money.

📅PUBLIC LEDGER

(computed by code at the settlement price)

The market-maker corridor. Across 394 expiries since February the market-maker break-even corridor held the settlement price 322 times — 82%. Sunday's expiry held in both assets, the day after Saturday broke it in both. Decision: we lean on the corridor knowing that roughly one expiry in five it doesn't hold.

Max pain. An exact match with the settlement in 36% of those same 394 expiries. Yesterday BTC diverged from it by 1.0% and ETH by 0.6%. Decision: we don't chase max pain; on the quarterly it stands 10–15% below the market, and that is not a promise of a move there.

The walls. The call wall held the settlement in 49% of expiries, the put wall in 41%: roughly a coin toss. Today's ether expiry carries 44,626 contracts, and spot stands above both its put wall and its call wall. Decision: a wall without an expiry and a contract count isn't published.

Whale structures by type (our Deribit registry, 726 closed cases). Bear call spread — the type of the case closed yesterday: 61 closed, 21% came in, −$885k in total. Call diagonal — the type of three of the four new cases: 51 closed, −$1.55M in total. Condor — the type of the big quarterly case: 36 closed, 69% came in, −$126k in total. All closed cases together: −$5.81M. Decision: win rate isn't money, and we don't copy whale structures — we track where they stand.

Polygon. Pendulum +$9,642 since 11.05 with +$90 on the day. A third day without a new trade in the top five. Decision: we publish both tallies daily with the same denominator, including the days when nothing happened.

📏Scale calibrator

• What protection costs. Our fear-and-greed index — 79 out of 100 against 89 yesterday. We compute it from the price of volatility and the option skew on Deribit, not from news, which is why it diverges from the well-known index.

• Cheap or expensive for this market itself. BTC two-day vol — 50th percentile of the hourly history since February, four-day — 48th, forty days out — 12th: the near days already cost what they usually do, the far ones are near the floor.

• Which way protection tilts. BTC skew +1.5: puts cost more than calls — yesterday it was −0.7, on the call side. Terms: indiciadesk.com/en/glossary/

Not investment advice and not a recommendation to trade. Derivatives trading carries a high risk of loss; INDICIA DESK is a research publisher, not an adviser licensed by MAS, the SEC or the FCA — decisions and their consequences are yours.