Bitcoin Futures Open Interest Soars as Traders Bet Big on Powell’s Policies and Trade Deals

Traders pile into BTC derivatives—because nothing says ’confidence’ like leveraged bets on macro uncertainty. Open interest surges while Wall Street pretends this time is different.

Ether’s notional open interest jumped nearly 16% to $6.60 billion, the largest single-day increase since Nov. 27.

An increase in open interest alongside a price rise is said to confirm the bullish momentum. In other words, BTC and ETH could continue to rise.

Funding Rates Bullish

The bias for bullish long positions is also evident from the moderately positive annualized perpetual funding rates, ranging between annualized 5% to 10% for BTC and ETH.

Funding rates, charged every eight hours, are payments exchanged between traders holding long and short positions in perpetual futures. They are designed to ensure the contract price stays close to the underlying asset’s spot price.

A positive funding rate implies that traders are more inclined and willing to pay fees to hold long positions. As such, it’s considered a sign of bullish sentiment. However, excessively high funding rates can indicate overcrowding or bullish speculative fervor, but that’s not the case right now.