Aggregate open interest in crypto perpetual futures reached a record this month across the eight venues tracked by this newsroom, while spot turnover on the same venues was roughly flat quarter on quarter.
The ratio between the two is the number market structure analysts watch. When notional leverage grows without a matching deepening of the cash market, liquidation cascades clear at worse prices because there is less resting spot liquidity to absorb them.
Funding rates have stayed mildly positive rather than spiking, which suggests positioning is crowded but not yet frantic. Two market makers described current conditions as "full but orderly".
Venue disclosure remains uneven. Three of the eight venues publish open interest continuously; the rest publish snapshots. Our series uses the lowest reported value in each interval to avoid overstating the total.
Methodology: figures are compiled from venue APIs at hourly intervals and denominated in U.S. dollars at the prevailing index price. The dataset excludes venues that do not publish an auditable open interest endpoint.
