ETH's 2280 Put OI Jumped From Zero, But One Lopsided Print Did the Damage

ETH's Sep-5 2280 put (3.7% below spot) went from 0 to 397 contracts of open interest inside a single 4-hour window on Sep 1 — the kind of jump that normally flags aggressive directional demand. The taker tape tells a different story.

Bucket (UTC)	Trades	Buy vol	Sell vol	Buyer aggression	Net premium
Sep1 20:00-24:00	3	4	393	0.009	-$2,906
Sep2 08:00-12:00	1	5	0	1.00	+$39

Just three trades produced the entire OI build, with 393 of 397 contracts crossing on the sell side — 99% seller-dominant, not the balanced two-way flow that usually accompanies genuine price discovery. Total net premium across the window sits at -$2,867, essentially all collected during that one lopsided burst. A handful of prints moving nearly 400 contracts in one window, with buyers all but absent, looks more like a single large transfer finding its way onto the OI tape than organic retail or directional accumulation. The put itself is modestly OTM (2280 vs spot 2368.66), so the strike isn't screaming tail-risk positioning — the anomaly is entirely in how the position got built, not where it sits.

Readers scanning OI-spike alerts on this name should treat the headline delta with caution until follow-through volume confirms two-sided interest.