Bitcoin futures open interest surged by $1.2 billion in just eight hours, marking a significant wave of new positions entering the derivatives market. This rapid increase far exceeds a previous mid-2026 record where $1.6 billion had accumulated over a full 24-hour period. The absence of a corresponding spike at CME Group indicates that the bulk of this activity originated from offshore platforms offering perpetual futures contracts with leverage ratios reaching up to 100x. Funding rates have become the key metric to watch to determine whether these new positions are longs or shorts. Total Bitcoin open interest had peaked at approximately 750,000 BTC, representing a notional value of $48 billion, in July 2026.
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