Bitcoin Open Interest
Open interest is the total value of futures contracts still open. Read together with price it tells you whether a move is being driven by fresh leverage or by positions closing — the difference between a trend and a squeeze.
- FinCEN-registered MSB
- NMLS ID 1804170 · 40+ US state licences
- Operating since 2013
CEX.IO is not accepting new retail clients in your region, so we are not linking to it here. See which exchanges do serve you, or .
BTC open interest vs price
2 minOpen interest across major perpetuals
| Pair | Price | OI (coins) | OI (USD) | 24h volume | OI / volume |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOADING | $0 | 0 | $0 | $0 | 0 |
| LOADING | $0 | 0 | $0 | $0 | 0 |
| LOADING | $0 | 0 | $0 | $0 | 0 |
| LOADING | $0 | 0 | $0 | $0 | 0 |
| LOADING | $0 | 0 | $0 | $0 | 0 |
| LOADING | $0 | 0 | $0 | $0 | 0 |
Reading open interest against price
Open interest on its own says almost nothing. Paired with price it gives you four readings, and they are among the most reliable in derivatives analysis:
- Price up, OI up — new longs. A trend with conviction, and a growing stack of positions that can be liquidated on the way back down.
- Price up, OI down — short covering. The move is being powered by shorts closing, which is finite fuel.
- Price down, OI up — new shorts pressing. Bearish, but it also builds fuel for a squeeze; check where those positions sit on the liquidation map.
- Price down, OI down — longs capitulating. Leverage is leaving the system. Painful, but it is how positioning resets.
The single most useful thing to watch is a sharp OI drop with a simultaneous price wick. That is a liquidation cascade, and once it completes the market is structurally lighter than it was an hour earlier.
Where this data comes from
Open interest is pulled from Binance USDⓈ-M futures — the deepest perpetual venue — through two endpoints: the live snapshot, and the historical series at 5-minute to daily granularity. Binance retains roughly 30 days of history, so the longest window here is bounded by that, not by us.
The dollar figure is computed as open interest × mark price. Both the coin-denominated and the dollar series are shown, because they can diverge sharply and the divergence is informative.
Caveats
- One venue. Binance is the largest perp market but not the only one; Bybit, OKX and the CME each carry meaningful open interest that is not counted here.
- OI does not have a direction. Every contract has a long and a short. Rising OI tells you exposure is growing, not which side is winning — pair it with funding and the long/short ratio for that.
- Hedges look like bets. A market maker holding a short perp against spot inventory adds to open interest without expressing any view at all.
Frequently asked questions
What is open interest in crypto?
Open interest is the total number of derivative contracts that are currently open and not yet settled. Every contract has a long and a short, so open interest counts each pair once. It is a measure of how much money is committed to the futures market — unlike volume, which counts activity, open interest counts exposure.
What does rising open interest mean?
Rising open interest means new contracts are being created, so fresh capital is entering. Read it against price: rising OI with rising price means new longs are driving the move, which is a trend with real conviction behind it but also a growing pile of liquidatable positions. Rising OI with falling price means new shorts are pressing.
What does falling open interest mean?
Falling OI means contracts are being closed. Falling OI with falling price is a long flush — positions being forced or chosen out of the market. Falling OI with rising price is short covering. Both are position-unwinding rather than fresh conviction, which is why sharp OI drops often mark the end of a move rather than the start of one.
How is open interest measured — in coins or dollars?
Both, and the difference matters. Binance publishes OI in contracts (which for USDⓈ-M pairs equals the base asset, so BTC). Multiplying by price gives the notional dollar value. During a rally the dollar figure can hit records while the coin-denominated figure is flat — that is price doing the work, not new positioning. We show both.
Open interest versus volume — what is the difference?
Volume counts every contract traded during a period, including a position opened and closed within minutes. Open interest counts only what is still open at the end of it. A day can have enormous volume and no change in open interest at all, which tells you it was churn rather than accumulation.