Open interest
Open interest is the total value of futures contracts currently open. It measures how much leverage is actually in the market — not how much is being traded, which is volume.
Bitcoin perpetual open interest, 7 days
Built into the pageEthereum perpetual open interest, 7 days
Open interest by exchange
| Exchange | Open interest (BTC) | 24h volume (BTC) | Perp pairs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binance | 420,853 | 771,377 | 803 |
| Hyperliquid | 197,511 | 99,920 | 336 |
| Bybit | 174,749 | 175,981 | 877 |
| Gate | 170,780 | 170,474 | 1029 |
| MEXC | 167,153 | 158,820 | 1294 |
| WEEX | 154,667 | 277,777 | 1066 |
| CoinW | 137,231 | 242,161 | 426 |
| Tapbit | 129,299 | 284,425 | 116 |
| XT.COM (Derivatives) | 110,778 | 113,357 | 792 |
| Bitget Futures | 110,700 | 112,541 | 930 |
| OKX | 101,645 | 278,753 | 501 |
| Toobit Futures | 72,301 | 199,921 | 779 |
Reading open interest properly
Rising OI with rising price
New money is opening longs. The move has fuel behind it, and also a growing pile of positions that can be liquidated on a pullback.
Rising OI with falling price
New shorts are being opened. Aggressive, and it sets up the conditions for a short squeeze if price reverses.
Falling OI with rising price
Shorts are covering rather than longs building. Rallies driven purely by this tend to stall once the covering finishes.
Falling OI with falling price
Longs are closing or being liquidated. A sharp drop in OI alongside a price drop is what a deleveraging event looks like.
One caveat worth knowing
Open interest in dollars rises when price rises even if not a single new contract is opened, because the same contracts are worth more. For positioning questions, compare OI denominated in coins with OI in dollars — if the dollar figure is making highs but the coin figure is flat, nothing new is being added. The charts above are in dollars; the exchange table is in BTC.
Data: Binance openInterestHist (1-hour candles), falling back to Bybit priced against matching hourly closes where Binance is unreachable, plus CoinGecko's derivatives endpoint for the venue table. Related: funding rates · live liquidations.