BTC: Volatility Term Structure Slope (Trade-Implied)
Shown as its 3 Oct – 1 Nov 2026 sample; the latest readings and full history are included with Plus.
The gap between longer- and shorter-dated at-the-money implied volatility of BTC options, rebuilt from Deribit's traded prices.
Why use it. A negative slope (front above back) marks fear about the near term; a positive one marks calm and carries the usual cost of holding short-dated options. How to read it. Below zero: backwardation (near-term volatility priced above longer-term). Above zero: contango. Each line is a longer tenor minus a shorter one, in volatility points.
Calculation. Trade-implied: each day's smile is rebuilt from that day's Deribit trades. For every expiry more than a day away, one point per strike (the out-of-the-money contract's volume-weighted implied volatility and log-moneyness against the index price at each trade, at least six strikes on both sides of the money) is fitted with raw SVI as on our fitted surface, then interpolated in total variance to each constant maturity between the two bracketing expiries, never extrapolated. The index price stands in for the forward, so a long tenor can differ from a forward-based reading by a fraction of a volatility point. Days with too few traded strikes have no value. Checked against our fitted surface over the 25 days both exist (14 October to 8 November 2026): the 30-day reading differs by 0.4 volatility points on average, the 7-day by under 1.2, the 25-delta risk reversal by about 0.5 and the butterfly by 0.1. Deribit's DVOL, a different whole-smile construction, runs a median of about 3 points higher with a 0.99 correlation over more than 2,000 days. Source: every Deribit BTC option trade (the coin-settled contracts) from Deribit's public trade record, complete from the first listed contract, and our own copy of that record for the latest days. OKX and Bybit are not included: their trades are only available from our own capture, which starts on 14 October 2026 13:00 UTC.