HomeLatest NewsNearly $48B in Bitcoin futures open interest risks liquidations

Nearly $48B in Bitcoin futures open interest risks liquidations

Posted: 16 August 2026, 14:33 CET 2 min read

About $47.9B in Bitcoin futures open interest may trigger liquidations if price exits its range. Offshore positive funding exposes leveraged longs; CME funds are net short 7,052 contracts.

A data snapshot at 09:30 UTC on Aug. 15 showed $47.88 billion of Bitcoin futures open interest, $38.49 billion of 24-hour futures volume and $2.234 billion of spot volume. Over the same rolling window, futures turnover measured about 17.23 times the snapshot’s spot-volume measure.

Offshore perpetual funding was small and positive in the sampled period. OKX’s BTC‑USDT perpetual rate was about 0.00752% for the sampled interval, and Deribit recorded a smaller positive eight-hour rate. Positive funding on perpetuals means longs pay shorts on those contracts.

CFTC data through Aug. 11 classified leveraged funds at the CME with 4,997 outright long and 12,049 outright short standard Bitcoin futures contracts, a net short of 7,052 contracts. That net short equals roughly 35,260 BTC in contract face value. The same dataset showed 1,958 spread positions for leveraged funds and asset managers holding a net 2,234 outright long contracts plus 157 spreads. The weekly CME report reflects positions at the close on the reported Tuesday and lags live positions by several days; the classifications include basis trades and hedges.

U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded net outflows of $385.2 million from Aug. 10 through Aug. 14. Over the wider Aug. 3–14 window, combined ETF flows remained net positive at $480.1 million.

Market tools that map liquidation levels use market data and leverage assumptions to estimate where forced activity may concentrate. Those maps are conditional estimates and do not represent queued orders.

The snapshot of funding rates, futures open interest and ETF flows shows two distinct channels in the derivatives market: small positive offshore funding on perpetuals combined with large outstanding open interest on one side, and a sizable net short position among CME leveraged funds on the other. Reported figures and timestamps: CoinGlass snapshot at 09:30 UTC on Aug. 15; OKX and Deribit funding in the sampled period; CFTC data through Aug. 11; ETF flows for Aug. 3–14 and Aug. 10–14.