The volume of active positions on the bitcoin futures market, including Binance and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, continues to grow along with the activity of short position holders, CoinDesk draws attention.
Open interest in futures on Tuesday reached 397,873. 36 BTC – the highest level since May 18. In dollars, taking into account the depreciation of the exchange rate, the value remained unchanged at about $12 billion. Since the end of May, the growth is more than 100,000 BTC.
"I believe that these are mainly short futures, taking into account the continuing negative funding rates on perpetual markets, as well as discounts on futures," said Shiliang Tan, investment director of the LedgerPrime crypto fund with assets of $130 million.
Funding rates have remained negative since mid-May. In such a situation, holders of short positions pay holders of long ones, which implies a bearish market mood.
The three-month basis, or the difference between the price of the underlying asset and the price of the futures, recently fell into the negative zone - one more sign of bearish expectations.
"Institutional investors seem very cautious at the moment and generally reduce risks," writes the analytical firm Arcane Research. "The futures premium on unregulated offshore derivatives markets also tends to zero, but still remains to a small extent on the FTX."
At the same time, this situation opens up opportunities for a sharp upward correction of bitcoin as a result of the liquidation of short positions with excessive leverage. Bitcoin has played back part of yesterday's fall and is trading in the black today by 8% above $32,000. Quantitative trader Sam Trabucco from the FTX - linked company Alameda Research announced that they were buying bitcoin on a decline on Tuesday. He explained the decision by the possible end of the period of negative news, the intraday recovery of the stock market and low volumes of liquidations of long positions.
The head of the Amber Group crypto startup, Jeffrey Wang, however, believes that it is too early to relax:
"With the relatively calm behavior of the market recently, short-term speculation and trading have decreased to some extent. When the volatile movements come, more traders will show interest. But this may lead to a further depreciation of the exchange rate if the openness to risks remains low."