Leveraged Bitcoin Longs are Back in Force, Trading Firm Says

Bitcoin (BTC) traders are once again placing bold bets on perpetual futures, undeterred by recent volatility that triggered a significant unwind of leveraged long positions. Singapore-based QCP Capital reported on Monday that open interest in perpetuals (futures with no expiration) is increasing, along with funding rates across major centralized and decentralized exchanges, signaling a strong bias toward long positions. “Optimism is re-emerging in the highly leveraged perpetual space. Rather than retreating after last week’s liquidations, leveraged longs are back in force,” the firm’s market insights team said in a Monday update. The team highlighted that cumulative open interest in BTC perpetuals worldwide has increased from $42.8 billion to $43.6 billion. While modest, this increase reflects renewed capital inflows. Meanwhile, annualized funding rates on leading platforms such as Deribit have jumped to 13%. Positive rates indicate that holders of long positions are willing to pay a fee to shorts to keep their positions open. “Hyperliquid’s long bias is also climbing back to 57%, up from just 36% last week,” the team added. Investors’ willingness to pay double-digit funding rates demonstrates growing conviction that prices will continue to rise during the historically bullish fourth quarter. The data also suggest that last week’s volatility did not significantly shake investor confidence. BTC’s price declined in the first four days of the previous week, with the sharpest drop below $109,000 occurring on Thursday. The sell-off led to over $700 million in liquidations of leveraged long positions—the largest single-day figure in at least six months, according to Coinglass. Bitcoin's price has since recovered to trade near $114,000.