Leverage vanishes from Bitcoin perps as funding rates and open interest sink

Bitcoin perpetual futures open interest has stayed below 310K BTC since October’s liquidation, signaling muted leverage and weaker speculative activity.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) perpetual futures market has experienced a significant decline in speculative activity, with Open Interest remaining at suppressed levels, according to analysis from blockchain analytics firm Glassnode.

In a post on social media platform X, Glassnode senior researcher CryptoVizArt. characterized the perpetual futures market as a “ghost town,” citing data showing reduced trading activity and leverage.

Bitcoin perps continue to shed

Open Interest, which measures the total amount of open positions on centralized derivatives platforms, experienced a sharp decline in October following a drop in Bitcoin’s price, according to the analysis. The metric tracks the aggregate value of outstanding futures contracts across exchanges.

Following the October liquidation event, Open Interest remained near lows before showing a brief uptick in mid-November as Bitcoin’s price continued to decline. The indicator peaked alongside what has served as the cryptocurrency’s price bottom thus far, according to the data.

Since that peak, Open Interest has declined again, approaching the same low levels observed after the October liquidation event, the analysis showed.

The decline in speculative participation has coincided with a drop in the perpetual futures Funding Rate, which tracks periodic fees exchanged between short and long position holders. The Funding Rate has been declining for an extended period, according to Glassnode’s data.

“This persistent drift lower reflects a decline in leveraged long conviction, with traders unwilling to pay a premium to maintain upside exposure,” the Glassnode researcher stated in the post.

Rising Open Interest typically indicates investors are opening new positions with fresh leverage, which can increase price volatility. Conversely, declining Open Interest suggests traders are closing positions or being liquidated, potentially leading to more stable price action as leverage is removed from the market.