Brace For Impact? Bitcoin Open Interest RSI Forms Bearish Divergence

Keshav Verma

1 year ago

3 mins read

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On-chain data shows the Bitcoin open interest RSI is currently forming a pattern that can lead to a short-term correction in the asset’s value.

Bitcoin Open Interest 14-Day RSI Has Been Climbing Up Recently

As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant post, a short-term bearish correction might soon take place for BTC. The “open interest” is an indicator that measures the total amount of Bitcoin futures contracts currently open on derivative exchanges. The metric takes into account both long and short contracts.

When the value of this metric goes up, it means investors are opening more contracts on derivative exchanges right now. Such a trend could result in higher volatility for the crypto’s price as it implies leverage is increasing in the market.

On the other hand, decreasing values suggest holders are getting liquidated or are closing down their futures contracts currently. Naturally, this could lead to a more stable price of BTC due to the lesser leverage.

Now, the relevant metric in the context of the current discussion isn’t the open interest itself, but its 14-day RSI. The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is a momentum oscillator that keeps track of the speed and direction of changes in any metric’s value over a specified period. The below chart shows the trend in the 14-day RSI of the Bitcoin open interest over the past year:

The value of the metric seems to have seen some rise in recent days | Source: CryptoQuant

As you can see in the above graph, the quant has highlighted the relevant regions of the trend for the Bitcoin open interest RSI (14). It would appear that whenever the RSI has risen while the BTC price has been moving sideways or downwards, a bearish divergence has formed for the crypto, and its price has undergone a correction.

There have been other instances of a rising open interest RSI in the past year, but all those were accompanied by a rise in the price itself (and not consolidation or decline) so the same pattern never applied to them. Recently, however, the metric has been once again surging, and this time the price has been moving sideways at the same time, which means the bearish divergence as those earlier instances is now forming.

If the trend from the previous occurrences indeed repeats this time as well, then Bitcoin could soon see another short-term correction in its price.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price floats around $16,800, up 1% in the last week.

Looks like the value of the crypto has enjoyed some uptrend in the last few days | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Becca on Unsplash.com, charts from TradingView.com, CryptoQuant.com

Keshav Verma

Keshav is currently a senior writer at NewsBTC and has been attached to the website since June 14, 2021.

Keshav has been writing for many years, first as a hobbyist and later as a freelancer. He has experience working in a variety of niches, even fiction at one point, but the cryptocurrency industry has been the longest he has been attached to.

In terms of official educational qualifications, Keshav holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from one of the premier institutes of India, the University of Delhi (DU). He started the degree with an aim of eventually making a career in Physics, but the onset of COVID led to a shift in plans. The virus meant that the college classes had to be delivered in the online-mode and with it came free time for him to explore other passions.

Initially only seeking to make some beer money, Keshav unexpectedly landed clients offering real projects, after which there was no looking back. Writing was something he had always enjoyed and to be able to do it for a living was like a dream come true.

Keshav completed his Physics degree in 2022 and has been focusing on his writing career since, but that doesn’t mean his passion for Physics has ended. He eventually plans to re-enter university to obtain a masters degree in the same field, but perhaps only to satiate his own interest rather than for using it as a means to find employment..

Keshav has found blockchain and its concepts fascinating ever since he started going down the rabbit-hole back in 2020. On-chain analysis in particular has been something he likes to research more about, which is why his NewsBTC pieces tend to involve it in some form.

Being of the science background, Keshav likes if concepts are clear and consistent, so he generally explains the indicators he talks about in a bit of detail so that the readers can perhaps come out having understood and learnt something new.

As for hobbies, Keshav is super into football, anime, and videogames. He enjoys football not only as a watcher, but also as a player. For games, Keshav generally tends towards enjoying singleplayer adventures, with EA FC (formerly FIFA) being the only online game he is active in. Though, perhaps due to being ultra-focused on the game, he is today a semi-pro on the EA FC scene, regularly participating in tournaments and sometimes even taking back prize money.

Because of his enthusiasm for anime and games, he also self-learned Japanese along the way to consume some of the untranslated gems out there. The skill didn’t merely remain as just a hobby, either, as he put it to productive use during his exploration for small-time gigs at the start of COVID, fulfilling a couple of Japanese-to-English translation jobs.

Keshav is also big into fitness, with agility and acceleration-related workouts making a big part of his program due to the relevance they have in football. On top of that, he also has a more traditional strength based program for the gym, which he does to maintain an overall fitness level of his body.

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