Bitcoin clears $81K in Asian hours — options desks are quietly positioning for more upside.

Bitcoin pushed above $81,000 during Asian trading Tuesday, its highest print since late January, extending a 5.3% weekly gain from roughly $79,000 at the Monday close. The move came even as geopolitical noise — U.S. destroyers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, an aerial strike on a Fujairah oil terminal, and Brent crude near $113 — kept macro risk elevated.

Beneath the surface, options desks have been building cheap upside structures through call ratio trades: buying near-strike calls and financing them by selling higher-strike calls, a setup that pays off on a gradual grind higher. Nomura's Laser Digital flagged in a note to CoinDesk that a decisive close above $80K should flip BTC's risk-reversal gauge from negative to positive — the first hard signal that options markets have rotated from defensive to constructive.

The broader market was mixed. ETH held $2,379 (-0.1% on the day…