Bitcoin's most violent rally of its two-year drawdown wasn't powered by fresh bullish bets. It was powered by bears getting crushed, according to a new report from ******* ytics firm Glassnode and crypto exchange Bybit.
Over five days in August, Bitcoin climbed 24.6% even as coin-denominated open interest, a measure of active leverage, fell 12.6%, the report found. That combination is the tell: rather than traders piling into new long positions, the move ran on the forced unwinding of existing shorts.
Roughly 64,000 BTC worth of open interest was closed out, and short positions supplied 89% of every liquidated dollar during the stretch.
The options market told the same story. Puts, the contracts traders buy to protect against a fall, had priced richer than calls for 361 straight days. A single session ended that run, flipping roughly a year of downside positioning as the market scrambled to reprice.
Bybit's own volatility index traveled four times its normal daily range in one session, and the front of the futures curve repriced sharply while longer-dated contracts barely moved, a sign the market read the move as a one-off event rather than a lasting regime change.
#interest
Over five days in August, Bitcoin climbed 24.6% even as coin-denominated open interest, a measure of active leverage, fell 12.6%, the report found. That combination is the tell: rather than traders piling into new long positions, the move ran on the forced unwinding of existing shorts.
Roughly 64,000 BTC worth of open interest was closed out, and short positions supplied 89% of every liquidated dollar during the stretch.
The options market told the same story. Puts, the contracts traders buy to protect against a fall, had priced richer than calls for 361 straight days. A single session ended that run, flipping roughly a year of downside positioning as the market scrambled to reprice.
Bybit's own volatility index traveled four times its normal daily range in one session, and the front of the futures curve repriced sharply while longer-dated contracts barely moved, a sign the market read the move as a one-off event rather than a lasting regime change.
#interest
12 hours ago
