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Zhitong Finance APP noticed that after one of the worst bullish position liquidations this year occurred last weekend, cryptocurrency traders almost immediately reinvested in optimistic bets in the options market.

Market participants said traders at offshore exchanges and U.S. over-the-counter desks are buying call options that give them the option to buy bitcoin at $90,000 or even higher later this year.

About $1.1 billion in cryptocurrency bets were liquidated on Aug. 4 in one of the biggest sell-offs this year, according to Coinglass. Bitcoin fell as much as 17% and Ethereum lost more than a fifth of its value at one point in the plunge that began during Asian trading hours. Both were up by Tuesday. About 50% of open positions in cryptocurrency derivatives were liquidated during the rout, according to Yevgeniy Feldman of SwapGlobal, which provides prime brokerage and swaps services to institutional investors.

“Traders were getting liquidated heavily on long positions, which was horrible,” Feldman said. “But U.S. hedge funds and institutional players that trade options through over-the-counter desks on Monday and Tuesday got back on the long options bets by buying Solana and bitcoin call spreads.”

Feldman said one of the main factors driving the Bitcoin rally was a surge in demand for Bitcoin from Coinbase. According to exchange order book data collated by SwapGlobal, the total amount of commitments to buy Bitcoin far exceeds the total amount of commitments seeking to sell, as can be seen from the buy-sell ratio.

“This imbalance suggests that there are a large number of buyers waiting for prices at $49,000 and below,” Feldman said. Bitcoin fell to a low of $49,212 on Monday, its lowest level since February.

Short-term hedging activity has increased rapidly on offshore exchanges over the past few days. Deribit’s put-to-call ratio remains elevated over the past 24 hours, with more puts being bought than calls.

Feldman said put option buying tends to be more pronounced on exchanges because retail investors using such platforms tend to trade in and out of the crypto asset class, while U.S. institutions that hold large amounts of bitcoin and use over-the-counter desks hedge more in options.

“While the bias at the front end of the curve was very favorable for puts, even after the sharp sell-off following the U.S. presidential election, the bias remained in favor of puts,” said Ravi Doshi, head of markets at broker FalconX. “As has been the case for much of this year, traders still expect a bullish second half for Bitcoin.”

Doshi said that as of today, the September $90,000 call option, the December $100,000 call option and the March $100,000 call option are the largest open contracts on the listed market, with the notional value of these three options alone approaching $1 billion. On Tuesday, the price of Bitcoin in New York rose about 4.5% to $56,850.

The bullish outlook for cryptocurrencies at the end of the year is driven in part by the rising likelihood of Trump, who has become a supporter of cryptocurrencies, becoming U.S. president again.