• Traders pile into APE calls options on the altcoin-focused derivatives exchange PowerTrade.

• Some traders bought the call option at $2.2, representing bullish expectations.

APE ecosystem's governance and utility token APE has doubled in value to $1.50 since the weekend, leading the broader market higher.

Options activity on PowerTrade, a crypto exchange focused on derivatives tied to alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins), suggests that the recent strong bullish momentum is expected to persist in the short term.

Open interest, or the number of active APE options contracts, surged by over 800% to 263,000 ($394.5K) in one day, PowerTrade told CoinDesk Monday, adding that call options or derivatives, offering an asymmetric upside potential, account for over 80% of the tally. Call buyers are implicitly bullish on the underlying asset.

Most activity is concentrated on the Oct. 22 and Oct. 25 expiry contracts, with traders buying higher strike out-of-the-money (OTM) calls at strikes as high as $2.2 or nearly 50% higher than APE's going market price.

The activity in APE options is noteworthy, considering the token has a market capitalization of just $1 billion and represents growing sophistication in the altcoin space. That said, open interest and volume are way lower than the billions of dollars locked in BTC and ETH options contracts listed on the leading exchange Deribit.

The bullish expectations likely stem from the Apechain mainnet launch and LayerZero's integration.

PowerTrade offers European-styled USD-settled options with one contract representing 1 APE as underlying. The exchange debuted the request-for-quote (RFQ) model for the options market in late 2022, allowing the execution of multi-legged strategies as a single instrument.

On Monday, the platform registered a record trading volume of $50 million in options tied to 44 altcoins and plans to offer options tied to several other altcoins, including EIGEN, APT, ARK, and PYTH.