Following Crash, Bitcoin Open Interest Declines To Sept 2021 Levels

Keshav Verma

1 year ago

3 mins read

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Following the crash to $35k, the Bitcoin open interest has declined to September 2021 levels. This may suggest that the market volatility will be lesser in the near future.

Bitcoin Open Interest Drops To Similar Levels As In September 2021

As pointed out by an analyst in a CryptoQuant post, the BTC open interest has decreased to similar levels as last September following the crash.

The “open interest” is an indicator that measures the total amount of Bitcoin futures contracts currently open in the derivatives market. The metric accounts for both long and short positions.

When the value of the indicator increases, it means more money is entering into the derivatives market as investors open more positions.

The volatility in the price of Bitcoin usually rises in such scenarios as it implies leverage in the market is going up, and so a liquidation squeeze may be coming.

On the other hand, when the open interest declines in value, it means holders are closing up their futures positions. The resulting lower leverage environment usually leads to lower price volatility.

Now, here is chart that shows the trend in the Bitcoin open interest since the May of last year:

The value of the indicator seems to have gone down recently | Source: CryptoQuant

As you can see in the above graph, the Bitcoin open interest has declined after the crash in the price of the crypto to $35k.

Similar behavior was also seen during two other instances in the last six months, where a crash in the BTC price wiped out some open interest.

During all these instances, it seems long liquidations were at play to amplify the slide in the crypto’s price. Now, the Bitcoin open interest is at the same level as September 2021.

Ethereum’s open interest has also dropped significantly since its ATH, and is now the lowest since last Sept. The below chart highlights this trend.

Looks like the ETH open interest has also observed a reset | Source: CryptoQuant

As the open interest values are now relatively lower, the quant believes volatility should also be lesser in the near term.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin’s price floats around $33.3k, down 21% in the last seven days. Over the past month, the crypto has lost 34% in value.

Here is a chart that shows the trend in the price of BTC over the last five days:

Looks like BTC's price has shown sharp downtrend in the last few days | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from 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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