First published 29 December 2025. Rewritten on 13 October 2026 from reports by CryptoQuant, Forklog, Cryptopolitan and Cointelegraph. This is a market explainer, not investment advice.
At the end of 2025, crypto traders were doing something that struck some analysts as odd: they were piling into leveraged bets while overall trading activity was shrinking. The numbers were small by the standards of the market, but the pattern was worth understanding, because it often ends badly.
First, what open interest is
Open interest is the total value of futures contracts that have been opened and not yet closed. When it rises, traders are adding positions, often with borrowed money, which is what leverage means. It does not tell you whether those traders are betting up or down, but a sharp rise with little new trading can show risk building up.
What December 2025 looked like
According to figures cited from CryptoQuant, Bitcoin open interest rose from about $22 billion to $23 billion during December, and Ether’s climbed from about $13 billion to $15 billion, so together they added roughly $2.4 billion. That happened as trading activity fell by about 40 per cent, with Bitcoin near $88,000 and later above $90,000 on 29 December. In the final week alone, traders added around $450 million of new leverage on exchanges including Binance, OKX and Bybit, and funding rates stayed positive, meaning traders holding bets on a rise were paying to keep them open.
Reports differed on the sentiment gauge. Most gave the Fear and Greed Index as 37, which indicates fear, while one outlet quoted 27. Either way, it was not a euphoric market. The analyst known as Crazzyblockk described the mood as “stubborn optimism” and noted that large holders had withdrawn about 20,000 BTC, suggesting that professional money was leaving while retail traders increased their margin bets.
Why analysts were wary
A real market bottom usually forms after leverage is flushed out, not while it is still building. Rising leverage into weakness can mean more forced selling later, because leveraged traders get liquidated when the price moves against them, and each liquidation pushes the price further.
What happened later
A later Cointelegraph report, written in early 2026, said aggregate Bitcoin futures open interest had fallen to about $34 billion, its lowest since November 2024 and a 28 per cent drop in 30 days, after roughly $5.2 billion of liquidations over two weeks. It also noted that US-listed Bitcoin exchange-traded funds were still seeing about $5.4 billion in average daily volume, which suggested demand had not vanished. That is a reminder that numbers from one week do not decide the year.
A note for Nigerian readers
Leverage and futures are advanced, high-risk tools, and many people lose money on them. If you are just starting out, read our guide on buying Bitcoin and USDT in Nigeria and the basics in how cryptocurrency works. Be careful with anyone who sells trading signals or promises guaranteed returns, and use only platforms registered with the SEC. See our guide on common money mistakes for the warning signs.
Sources
- Forklog: Traders overlook market fear to increase leverage by $2.4 billion
- Cryptopolitan: Crypto traders pile $2.4B into leveraged bets amid December panic
- Crypto Economy: December panic fuels $2.4B surge in leveraged crypto bets
- Cointelegraph: Bitcoin open interest hits lows not seen since 2024
- Coinotag: the original report this story was first based on
