Bitcoin Perpetuals Stay 156 Hours Below Spot as Open Interest Rises

By Nathan Brooks

Bitcoin perpetual futures have traded below spot for 156 consecutive hours—6 days and 12 hours—while open interest rose 22,000 BTC in a week to 367,400 BTC, according to CryptoQuant analyst Axel Adler Jr.

The figures describe different market windows. The 156-hour reading tracks the continuous stretch in which perpetual prices sat below the spot price; the 0.047% reading measures the discount over the latest 24 hours. That latest spread equals 4.7 basis points.

Open interest, meanwhile, rose by 22,000 BTC over the past week. The addition represents roughly 6% of the reported ending total and ranks among the strongest weekly increases since August, based on the figures cited in the report. The move implies a starting open-interest level of 345,400 BTC.

That distinction matters. A 156-hour streak establishes persistence, while the 0.047% discount describes the latest magnitude. Neither measure on its own shows how market positioning changed during the week; the separate open-interest series supplies that comparison.

Adler linked the widening discount since Nov. 6 to selling pressure in the futures market. In practical terms, perpetual prices have remained below spot while open interest has increased rather than fallen. The combination does not provide a standalone price forecast; it identifies a market structure in which leverage is building under weaker futures pricing.

Adler said the combination “raises deleveraging risk.” His assessment was that a weak futures basis and rising open interest together leave the market more exposed to forced deleveraging. The basis is the spread between futures and spot, so a negative reading places perpetual futures below the spot reference.

The risk remains conditional rather than evidence that a deleveraging cycle has begun. Adler identifies rising open interest and a weak basis as conditions that increase exposure to forced deleveraging. His counterindicator is equally specific: falling open interest would show that leverage is already coming out of the market.

What does this change for traders?

The practical change is that the discount and open interest now require a joint reading. A persistent negative basis identifies futures selling pressure, while rising open interest indicates that open positioning has expanded rather than contracted. Neither signal, in isolation, identifies the direction of the next price move.

Adler provided a specific marker for the opposite condition. He said: “A decline in open interest would indicate that leverage is being reduced.” A fall would therefore provide clearer evidence that traders are reducing exposure than the current combination of persistent futures weakness and rising open interest.

For market participants, the monitoring task is specific: watch whether open interest begins to fall, whether the 0.047% discount narrows, and whether the 156-hour streak persists. Those readings would help distinguish a market reducing leverage from one in which weak futures basis and rising open interest keep forced-deleveraging risk elevated.

The discount and open-interest data do not establish where Bitcoin will trade. They do show why the next structural signal matters: a decline in open interest would indicate that leverage is being reduced, whereas continued growth alongside a wider discount would preserve the conditions Adler linked to forced deleveraging.

The next market-structure signal will be whether open interest begins to fall while the below-spot basis persists, a shift that would mark the move from leverage accumulation toward deleveraging.