Bitcoin futures fall $1.4B as spot buyers gain ground

Glassnode’s Oct. 5 Market Pulse reported that bitcoin futures open interest declined from $38.0 billion to $36.6 billion through Oct. 4. The report showed the cumulative volume delta, a measure of buyer- versus seller-initiated trades, moved from negative $102.8 million to positive $33.2 million.

Hot Capital Share, which measures recently active capital over a three-month window, rose to 19.5% from 18.9% during the same period. The short-term-to-long-term holder supply ratio increased to 14.2% from 13.7%, equivalent to about 14.2 units of short-term supply for every 100 units of long-term supply.

Long-side funding payments on perpetual contracts rose to roughly $1.5 million from about $926,400. The report said remaining futures exposure stayed near the upper edge of its historical statistical range.

Glassnode described its realized-cap age-band method as assigning coins the price at which they last moved and dividing each age band’s value by total realized capitalization. When older coins move, their age resets and their realized value updates, increasing the economic weight of recently active coins. The platform groups addresses into entities and smooths entity-average holding-age classification around a 155-day midpoint, excluding exchange balances.

The report noted that the cumulative volume delta records trade direction and aggression but does not measure how much new fiat or first-time investor capital entered the market. The snapshot presented a smaller nominal derivatives footprint alongside a larger share of recently active coin supply and said futures exposure and holder activity should be read together when assessing market risk.

Additional figures in the snapshot placed bitcoin’s market capitalization at about $1.72 trillion, 24-hour trading volume near $27.28 billion and a circulating supply of roughly 20.09 million coins.