The oil market is treating Trump’s Iran deal as the end of the war scare. One veteran trader’s oil price prediction says that the read is wrong.

Brent crude looks calm, but the calm may be the setup. The futures curve and the physical market seem to back him.

Trump’s Deal Reset the Oil Mood

Brent crude oil (BRN) and WTI crude (CL) both fell hard this month as a US-Iran deal took shape.

Vice President JD Vance led the talks in Switzerland and announced several breakthroughs. The two sides built a mechanism to keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Vance called the framework a classic Trump deal. He said any unfrozen Iranian assets would buy American soy, corn, and wheat rather than send cash to Tehran.

Traders read all of this as supply relief. If the Strait reopens and Gulf output returns, the war premium in oil should fade. That logic drove the recent drop.

The deal is far from sealed, though. Trump threatened fresh strikes over the weekend, briefly rattling the talks.

The Lebanon ceasefire piece remains, in Vance’s words, a work in progress. So the market is pricing a peace that has not fully arrived.

One Veteran Trader Sees a Spike Instead

Dan Dicker is not buying the calm. The veteran energy trader warns that oil could jump from about $75 to $135 within a month. His condition is simple.

If inventories stay drained and supply fails to recover, the physical market forces a sharp repricing.

Dicker’s call is a tail risk, not a base case. But it frames the stakes. A deal that slips, or a strait that stays choked, could turn a quiet tape into a violent one. For now, though, the fast money is leaning the other way.

Crypto Traders Are Shorting Oil, but It Stays Local

Crypto markets now trade oil, too. On Hyperliquid, a large derivatives venue, the Brent perpetual draws real volume. Positioning there has turned firmly bearish.

Smart money, the wallets with strong track records, sits net short by about $1.1 million. Public figures and influencers are shorter still. One whale that shorted near the war highs, around $110, is up roughly $400,000.

The funding rate, the recurring fee between longs and shorts, sits at a positive near 10% a year. That means longs are still paying to hold, even after the oil price drop. The stubborn bulls are squeezed, but they are not letting go.

There is a catch for the bears, though. This perp is a small market, with about $140 million in open positions. A short squeeze here can move the perp, but not global Brent.

The real price is set in the physical and futures market, not on a crypto venue. The options market tells a more divided story.

The Options Book Is Hedging, Not Flipping

The United States Brent Oil Fund (BNO) allows American investors to trade Brent via an exchange-traded fund. Its options carry a useful sentiment gauge. The put-call ratio compares bets on a fall to bets on a rise.

A reading below 1 means calls dominate, which leans bullish.

The two readings are split this week. Fresh option volume turned cautious, with the put-call ratio jumping from 0.06 to 0.32. So traders rushed to buy downside protection as Brent fell.

The standing positions told the opposite story. The open interest put-call ratio eased from 0.09 to 0.07, an even more call-heavy book.

That gap is hedging, not surrender. The lasting positions stayed long while the fresh flow bought insurance. It points to bulls protecting gains rather than flipping bearish. The physical market sends the clearest message of all.

The Curve and the Clock Say Tight

The Brent futures curve refuses to confirm the all-clear. Front-month Brent still trades above the next month, a condition known as backwardation.

Backwardation means buyers will pay more for oil now than for later, a classic sign of tight supply. That spread has thinned to its lowest since December 2023. Yet it has stayed positive rather than flipping into oversupply. The physical market still says barrels are scarce.

Prediction markets back that view and align with Dan Dicker’s choked Hormuz possibility. On Kalshi, traders see only about a 51% chance that Strait of Hormuz traffic returns to normal by September.

Full confidence does not arrive until 2027. That timeline aligns with the EIA, which expects flows to resume in the third quarter and output to recover by early 2027.

The cushion is thinning too. The US emergency oil reserve fell 9.1 million barrels last week to 331.2 million, its lowest since 1983.

So the stockpile that would soften any new spike is shrinking, not refilling, also in line with Dicker’s oil hypothesis. Iran is adding pressure of its own, now floating mandatory insurance for any ship crossing the Strait. That keeps a floor under oil even as the war scare fades.

The Whale Is the Tell

Watch the trader who called the top on oil price. The position shorted from $110, per Nansen data, and now sits deep in profit. That entry is a live gauge of conviction. As long as the short stays open, smart money still expects oil to be lower.

A move to close it would be the first real sign the bearish bet is cracking.

The longs tell the other half. They keep paying funding, so the stubborn bid has not quit. If the supply squeeze returns and those longs are right, $135 stops being a warning and starts being a path. Wednesday’s US inventory update is the next clue on which way it breaks.

Another steep draw would back the oil price bulls, while a surprise build would hand the peace trade its proof.

Source: BeInCrypto