Crypto Open Interest Today: Live Table
The number of perpetual contracts still open across the top 30 Binance futures pairs, in contracts and USD value, along with their 1h and 24h changes. Data is read directly in your browser and refreshed every 5 minutes. Describes market conditions, not financial advice.
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Open interest is…
Open interest is the number of derivative contracts still alive in a market at a given time, positions that have been opened but not yet closed, expired, or liquidated. Because each contract has a pair of opposing parties, one open contract is counted once, not twice. In crypto perpetual markets this figure is reported in units of the base asset: BTCUSDT open interest of 90,000 means the equivalent of 90,000 BTC is being held in contracts.
Open interest only grows when a new buyer meets a new seller. If an existing holder passes their position to someone else, the contract changes hands without changing open interest, only volume rises. Conversely, when both parties close their positions, the contract disappears and open interest falls.
What its rise and fall describe
Growing open interest means new capital is entering the derivatives market: more live positions, more that could be liquidated if price moves far. Shrinking open interest means positions are being closed, either because holders exit voluntarily or because they're forced out through liquidation. Sharp drops within minutes usually coincide with a wave of liquidations.
What open interest doesn't tell you is which side is growing. Every contract has one party on the buy side and one on the sell side, so the number is directionally neutral. To see which way the book is leaning, funding rate is more informative, which is why the two are usually read side by side.
Related pages
- Crypto funding rates today · live table of perpetual pairs from 299 tracked coins, showing which side is currently paying.
- BTC/USDT chart · ETH/USDT chart · open interest and funding for one pair along with its chart.
- Crypto prices today · the top 299 coins with their rupiah prices.
FAQ
- What is open interest?
- Open interest is the number of derivative contracts that are still open and not yet closed or settled at a given time. Every contract always has two sides, a buyer and a seller, so open interest counts that pair once. It rises when new positions are opened on both sides and falls when positions are closed or liquidated.
- What's the difference between open interest and volume?
- Volume counts how many contracts changed hands over a period, while open interest counts how many are still held right now. A contract opened and closed on the same day adds to volume twice but leaves no trace in open interest. Volume is activity; open interest is the exposure that remains.
- Why are there two columns, contracts and USD?
- Binance reports open interest in units of the base asset, e.g. the number of BTC. The USD column multiplies it by the current mark price so sizes can be compared across coins. Because the USD column moves with price, a rise in the USD figure doesn't always mean new contracts, the contract count may be unchanged while price rises.
- How are the 1h and 24h changes calculated?
- From Binance's published hourly open interest history: the current value is compared with the point one hour ago and the point 24 hours ago, in contracts. The comparison uses contract counts, not USD value, so price moves aren't counted as changes in open interest.
- Why only 30 pairs?
- Open interest history is only available per symbol, one request per pair, so the number of pairs scales directly with the load on Binance's public endpoint. The top thirty pairs by volume already cover the bulk of market open interest, at about 12 requests per minute, safely under the limit. Funding rate, which needs only one request for all pairs, covers the perpetual pairs available from the 299 tracked coins.
- Does rising open interest mean price will rise?
- No. Open interest has no direction: it only shows positions being added or removed, without telling which side is growing. Open interest rises in both strengthening and weakening markets. This page describes conditions and is not financial advice.