In the first half of 2025, the global macro environment continued to be turbulent. The Federal Reserve has repeatedly suspended interest rate cuts, reflecting that its monetary policy has entered a "wait-and-see" stage, while the Trump administration's tariff increase and escalating geopolitical conflicts have further torn the global risk appetite structure. At the same time, the cryptocurrency derivatives market continued its strong momentum at the end of 2024, and the overall scale hit a new high. After BTC broke through the historical high of $111K at the beginning of the year and entered a consolidation phase, the global BTC derivatives open interest (OI) increased significantly, and the overall open interest in January-June jumped from about US$60 billion to a maximum of more than US$70 billion. As of June, although the BTC price was relatively stable around $100K, the derivatives market has experienced multiple long-short shuffles, leverage risks have been released, and the market structure is relatively healthy.
This report looks ahead to Q3 and Q4. It is expected that driven by the macro environment (such as changes in US interest rate policy) and institutional funds, the derivatives market will continue to expand and volatility may remain convergent. At the same time, risk indicators need to be continuously monitored, and we remain cautiously optimistic about the continued rise in BTC prices.
1. Market Overview
Market Overview
In the first and second quarters of 2025, BTC prices experienced significant fluctuations. At the beginning of the year, BTC prices reached a high of $110K in January, and then fell back to about $75K in April, a drop of about 30%. However, with the improvement of market sentiment and the continued interest of institutional investors, BTC prices climbed again in May, reaching a peak of $112K. As of June, the price stabilized at around $107K. At the same time, BTC's market share continued to strengthen in the first half of 2025. According to Tradingview data, BTC's market share reached 60% at the end of the first quarter, the highest level since 2021. This trend continued in the second quarter, with a market share of more than 65%, showing investors' preference for BTC.
At the same time, institutional investors' interest in BTC continues to grow, and BTC spot ETFs continue to inflow, with total ETF assets under management exceeding $130 billion. In addition, some global macroeconomic factors, such as the decline in the US dollar index and distrust in the traditional financial system, have also boosted BTC's appeal as a means of storing value.
In the first half of 2025, ETH's overall performance was disappointing. Although ETH prices briefly hit a high of around $3,700 at the beginning of the year, they fell sharply. By April, ETH had fallen below $1,400, a drop of more than 60%. The price recovery in May was limited. Even with the release of technical benefits (such as the Pectra upgrade), ETH still only rebounded to around $2,700, failing to regain its high at the beginning of the year. As of June 1, ETH prices stabilized at around $2,500, down nearly 30% from the high at the beginning of the year, and showed no signs of a strong and sustained recovery.
The divergence between ETH and BTC is particularly obvious. Against the backdrop of BTC's rebound and continued rise in market dominance, ETH not only failed to rise synchronously, but instead showed obvious weakness. This phenomenon is reflected in the significant decline in the ETH/BTC ratio, from 0.036 at the beginning of the year to a minimum of about 0.017, a drop of more than 50%. This divergence reveals a significant decline in market confidence in ETH. It is expected that in the third to fourth quarters of 2025, with the approval of the ETH spot ETF pledge mechanism, market risk appetite may rebound and overall sentiment is expected to improve.
The overall weakness of the altcoin market was even more significant. CoinGlass data showed that although some mainstream altcoins represented by Solana had a brief surge at the beginning of the year, they subsequently experienced a continuous correction. SOL fell from a high of about $295 to an April low of about $113, a drop of more than 60%. Most other altcoins (such as Avalanche, Polkadot, ADA) also generally experienced similar or larger declines. Some altcoins even fell by more than 90% from their highs. This phenomenon shows that the market's risk aversion towards high-risk assets has increased.
In the current market environment, BTC's position as a risk-averse asset has been significantly strengthened, and its attributes have changed from "speculative products" to "institutional allocation assets/macro assets", while ETH and altcoins are still mainly "crypto native capital, retail speculation, and DeFi activities", and their asset positioning is more similar to technology stocks. The ETH and altcoin markets have continued to be weak due to the reduction in capital preference, increased competitive pressure, and the impact of the macro and regulatory environment. Except for the continued expansion of the ecology of a few public chains (such as Solana), the overall altcoin market lacks obvious technological innovation or new large-scale application scenarios, making it difficult to effectively attract investors' continued attention. In the short term, due to macro-level liquidity restrictions, the ETH and altcoin markets will find it difficult to significantly reverse the weak trend without a new strong ecology or technology drive, and investors' investment sentiment towards altcoins remains cautious and conservative.
BTC/ETH derivatives positions and leverage trends
The total amount of BTC open contracts hit a new high in the first half of 2025. Driven by the huge inflow of funds from spot ETFs and strong demand for futures, BTC futures OI further climbed, exceeding US$70 billion in May this year.
It is worth noting that the share of traditional regulated exchanges such as CME has increased rapidly. As of June 1, CoinGlass data showed that CMEBTC futures open interest reached 158,300 BTC (about 16.5 billion US dollars), ranking first among all exchanges, surpassing Binance's 118,700 BTC (about 12.3 billion US dollars) during the same period. This reflects that institutions entered the market through regulated channels, and CME and ETFs became important increments. Binance still has the largest open interest among cryptocurrency exchanges, but its market share has been diluted.
As for ETH, like BTC, its total open interest hit a new high in the first half of 2025, and exceeded $30 billion in May this year. As of June 1, CoinGlass data showed that Binance ETH futures open interest reached 2.354 million ETH (about $6 billion), ranking first among all exchanges.
In general, the use of leverage by exchange users tended to be rational in the first half of the year. Although the total open interest in the market has increased, multiple sharp fluctuations have cleared over-leveraged positions, and the average leverage ratio of exchange users has not gotten out of control. Especially after the market fluctuations in February and April, the exchange's margin reserves are relatively abundant, and the leverage ratio indicator of the entire market has occasionally reached a high point but has not shown a trend of continuous increase.
Analysis of CoinGlass Derivatives Index (CGDI)
CoinGlass Derivatives Index (CGDI) is an index that measures the price performance of the global crypto derivatives market. Currently, more than 80% of the trading volume in the crypto market comes from derivatives contracts, and the mainstream spot index cannot effectively reflect the core pricing mechanism of the market. CGDI dynamically tracks the prices of the top 100 mainstream cryptocurrency perpetual contracts ranked by open interest market value (Open Interest), and combines their open interest number (Open Interest) for value weighting, to build a highly representative derivatives market trend indicator in real time.
CGDI showed a divergent trend from BTC prices in the first half of the year. At the beginning of the year, BTC rose strongly driven by institutional buying, and the price remained near the historical high, but CGDI began to fall since February - the reason for this decline was the weakness of other mainstream contract asset prices. Since CGDI is calculated based on the OI weighted calculation of mainstream contract assets, ETH and altcoin futures failed to strengthen synchronously while BTC was the only one to stand out, dragging down the performance of the comprehensive index. In short, funds were obviously concentrated on BTC in the first half of the year. BTC remained strong mainly due to the long-term increase in institutional holdings and the spot ETF effect. BTC's market share increased, while the cooling of speculative enthusiasm in the altcoin sector and capital outflows caused CGDI to fall while BTC prices remained high. This divergence reflects the change in investors' risk preferences: ETF benefits and risk aversion demand have led to an influx of funds into high-market-cap assets such as BTC, while regulatory uncertainty and profit-taking have put pressure on secondary assets and the altcoin market.
CoinGlass Derivatives Risk Index (CDRI) Analysis
CoinGlass Derivatives Risk Index (hereinafter referred to as "CDRI") is an indicator to measure the risk intensity of the crypto derivatives market. It is used to quantitatively reflect the current market's leverage usage, trading sentiment and systemic liquidation risk. CDRI focuses on forward-looking risk warnings and issues early warnings when the market structure deteriorates. Even if prices are still rising, it will show a high-risk state. The index constructs a real-time risk profile of the cryptocurrency derivatives market through weighted analysis of multiple dimensions such as open contracts, funding rates, leverage multiples, long-short ratios, contract volatility and liquidation volume. CDRI is a standardized risk scoring model with a range of 0-100. The higher the value, the closer the market is to an overheated or fragile state, and the more likely it is to experience systemic liquidation.
The CoinGlass Derivatives Risk Index (CDRI) remained at a neutral to slightly higher level in the first half of the year. As of June 1, the CDRI was 58, which is in the "medium risk/volatility neutral" range, indicating that the market is not obviously overheated or panic, and short-term risks are controllable.
2. Cryptocurrency derivatives data analysis
Perpetual Contract Funding Rate Analysis
Changes in funding rates directly reflect the use of leverage in the market. A positive funding rate usually means an increase in long positions and bullish market sentiment, while a negative funding rate may indicate an increase in short pressure and a cautious market sentiment. The fluctuation of funding rates reminds investors to pay attention to leverage risks, especially when market sentiment changes rapidly.
In the first half of 2025, the crypto perpetual contract market as a whole showed a situation of longs dominating, and the funding rate was positive most of the time. The funding rates of major crypto assets continued to be positive and above the benchmark level of 0.01%, indicating that the market was generally bullish. During this period, investors were optimistic about the market outlook, which promoted the increase of long positions. As the longs were crowded and profit-taking pressure increased, BTC fell back from a high in mid-to-late January, and the funding rate also returned to normal.
Entering the second quarter, market sentiment returned to rationality. From April to June, the funding rate was mostly maintained below 0.01% (about 11% annualized), and even turned negative in some periods, indicating that the speculative craze has subsided and long and short positions have tended to be balanced. According to CoinGlass data, the number of times the funding rate turned from positive to negative was very limited, indicating that there were not many times when the market's bearish sentiment broke out. When the news of Trump's tariffs caused a sharp drop in early February, the BTC perpetual funding rate once turned from positive to negative, indicating that the short sentiment reached a local extreme; when BTC quickly dropped to around $75K in mid-April, the funding rate briefly turned negative again, indicating that shorts were crowded under panic; in mid-June, the geopolitical shock caused the funding rate to fall into the negative range for the third time. Except for these extreme cases, the funding rate remained positive for most of the first half of the year, reflecting the long-term bullish tone of the market. The first half of 2025 continued the trend of 2024: the funding rate turned negative in a few cases, and each time it corresponded to a sharp reversal of market sentiment. Therefore, the number of switches between positive and negative rates can serve as a signal of a reversal in sentiment - the only few switches in the first half of this year just foreshadowed the emergence of a turning point in the market.
Options Market Data Analysis
In the first half of 2025, the scale and depth of the BTC options market increased significantly, and the activity reached new highs. As of June 1, 2025, the crypto options market is still highly concentrated in a few exchanges, mainly including Deribit, OKX, and Binance. Among them, Deribit occupies more than 60% of the options market share and continues to maintain an absolute leading position, becoming the mainstream BTC/ETH options liquidity center. Especially in the high-net-worth user and institutional markets, it is widely adopted due to its rich products, excellent liquidity, and mature risk management. At the same time, the options market share of Binance and OKX has increased slightly. As Binance and OKX continue to improve their options product systems, the market share of the top exchanges will tend to be dispersed, but Deribit's leading position will be difficult to shake in 2025. Although the market share of DeFi on-chain protocol options (such as Lyra, Premia, etc.) has increased, the overall volume is still limited.
According to CoinGlass statistics, the total amount of open contracts for BTC options worldwide reached a historical peak of approximately US$49.3 billion on May 30, 2025. Against the backdrop of a stabilization of the spot market and a decline in volatility, option positions have risen instead of falling, which clearly shows that investors are using options for cross-period layout and risk hedging. In terms of implied volatility (IV), the first half of the year showed a trend of first falling and then stabilizing. As the spot market entered a high-level consolidation, the implied volatility of options fell significantly compared with last year. In May this year, BTC's 30-day implied volatility fell to a low level in recent years, indicating that the market expects limited short-term volatility. This is in sharp contrast to the huge open positions: on the one hand, there are huge option positions, and on the other hand, there is a historically low volatility, which suggests that investors expect prices to fluctuate in a narrow range or adopt a seller strategy to earn profits. However, ultra-low volatility itself is also a risk - once a black swan event occurs, it may trigger a sudden increase in volatility and position squeeze. During the geopolitical crisis in June, we did observe a small jump in IV, and the Put/Call ratio rose synchronously to about 1.28, indicating an increase in short-term risk aversion. Overall, the average implied volatility of options in the first half of the year remained at a moderate level, without a sharp surge like in 2021.
To summarize the key points of the options market: in the first half of the year, options positions continued to rise and market depth increased; investors were very interested in high-priced call options, but at the same time hedged through put options; implied volatility was at a low level, and seller strategies prevailed. Looking forward to the second half of the year, if the spot market breaks out of the shock range, the implied volatility IV may increase rapidly, and the options market may usher in a new round of pricing reshaping.
Cryptocurrency perpetual contract liquidation data analysis
Looking at the first half of 2025, the scale of long positions was extremely prominent. Especially in several market crashes, the risk exposure accumulated by longs was released by centralized liquidation. On February 3, 2025, according to CoinGlass statistics, a total of about $2.23B of positions were forced to close within 24 hours that day, of which longs accounted for $1.88B, and more than 729,000 positions were forced to close in this crash. This was the largest single-day liquidation in the first and second quarters of 2025, triggered by Trump's sudden announcement of large-scale trade tariffs, which triggered panic selling in the market.
On February 25, negative news broke out at the macro level. Trump confirmed that tariffs would be implemented as scheduled, US retail giant Walmart warned of future performance slowdown, and the Federal Reserve's meeting minutes turned hawkish. The news made the already fragile market worse. The crypto market once again experienced a stampede sell-off. BTC fell below the important psychological mark of $90,000 that day, setting a new low since November last year. The total amount of forced liquidation on the same day was about $1.57 billion. The liquidation structure was similar to that in early February. The liquidation was still dominated by long positions. As the market continued to fall, long leveraged funds accumulated at high levels and were liquidated in a centralized manner. For example, Bybit, an exchange, had its positions of about $666 million liquidated, of which nearly 90% were long positions. In terms of assets, in addition to BTC and ETH being hit hard, altcoins fell even more sharply. For example, after Solana hit a high in mid-January, its price had been halved by the end of February, falling by more than 50%, and the liquidation of related perpetual contracts exceeded $150 million. In early March, the price of BTC once dropped to about $82,000, and mainstream currencies set new lows in several months.
After the market hit a new low for the year on April 7, the overall market long leverage has been basically cleared, creating good market conditions for continued rise. From historical experience, after the liquidation of large-scale long positions, the market tends to stabilize due to the release of leverage risk, which is conducive to bottoming out, and the market enters the "repair after deleveraging" stage. On April 23, 2025, the cryptocurrency market experienced the largest short liquidation event of the year, becoming one of the most iconic market turning points so far in 2025. On April 22, BTC soared nearly 7% to $93K in a short period of time, resulting in the forced liquidation of more than $600 million in short positions, accounting for 88% of the total liquidation on that day, far exceeding the long losses. The proportion of short positions in major exchanges exceeded 75%. In the case of a unilateral rapid rise, short liquidation will dramatically amplify the upward momentum and form a "stampede-style" short covering. However, from a global perspective, the absolute scale of short position liquidations in the first half of the year is usually lower than that of long position liquidations: for example, the scale of the largest short position liquidation day (approximately US$500-600 million) is significantly smaller than the scale of the long position liquidation day in February (US$1.88 billion). This is related to the rising cycle of the entire market. Longs are more willing to increase leverage and bear greater risk exposure. However, longs are overly optimistic and have too high leverage ratios. Once the key price level is broken, it is easy to trigger a chain of liquidations, forming a "death spiral" type of leverage liquidation market.
In February 2025, Bybit once again pushed full clearing data to the market and the public through API, which became one of the most iconic events in the cryptocurrency derivatives market in recent years. The direct background of this move is that the industry has increasingly criticized the lack of transparency of trading platform data, especially the incompleteness of clearing data disclosure, which has long led to information asymmetry in the market and affected the ability of trading participants to identify and manage market risks. In this situation, Bybit has actively improved the breadth and depth of data disclosure, demonstrating its determination to enhance the credibility of the platform and enhance market competitiveness. Bybit's promotion of comprehensive and timely disclosure of clearing data is an important measure to promote the transparent and standardized development of the cryptocurrency derivatives market. The real-time push of full clearing data helps market participants and analysts to more accurately assess market risks, especially during periods of drastic market fluctuations, and can effectively alleviate risk misjudgments and trading losses caused by information asymmetry. This move has set a good example of data transparency for the entire industry and has a positive role in promoting the healthy development of the cryptocurrency derivatives market.
Analysis on the Development of Derivatives Exchanges
Derivatives Trading Volume Analysis
Data from 2025 show that the total trading volume of cryptocurrency derivatives has shown a moderate growth trend compared with 2024, but the volatility has increased significantly. Affected by the global macroeconomic environment, the landing of BTC spot ETFs and the Fed's policies, the market activity in 2025 has increased significantly, especially when the market fluctuates violently, the trading volume of the derivatives market has repeatedly set new highs. At the same time, the market structure is further concentrated on the head exchanges, and platforms such as Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, etc. occupy the main market share. At the same time, Binance, as a head platform, continues to consolidate its market monopoly position, and its trading volume is far ahead of other cryptocurrency derivatives exchanges. Although platforms such as OKX and Bybit remain competitive, the gap with Binance has widened. It is worth noting that since 2024, the participation of compliance institutions (such as CME) has increased, promoting the institutionalization process of the derivatives market. The steady growth of derivatives trading volume reflects the market's increased demand for risk management and leverage tools, but it is also necessary to be vigilant against liquidity risks and regulatory policy changes in a high-volatility environment. Overall, the market trading volume is highly concentrated on the head platforms, the market share of the head exchanges continues to increase, and the Matthew effect is intensified. Investor trust is highly correlated with liquidity, and high-quality platforms have become the preferred venue for mainstream funds and trading activities.
Binance
Binance has maintained a very high daily trading volume in the first half of 2025, with a single-day trading volume approaching $200 billion on many occasions. Throughout the entire cycle, Binance's trading volume has fluctuated at a high level overall, and extremely high values have frequently appeared, reflecting that the platform has strong market appeal and liquidity in all types of market conditions (including large fluctuations and normal ranges). It is particularly noteworthy that during periods of drastic market fluctuations (such as sharp market increases or corrections), Binance's trading volume has significantly increased, indicating that large funds and major users are more inclined to choose the most liquid platform for risk hedging and strategic trading in highly volatile markets.
Binance's daily trading volume ranks first, and the head effect is significant. Compared with mainstream exchanges such as OKX and Bybit, Binance has a clear advantage in trading volume, and its share continues to expand. Most of the time, the trading volume of Binance's single platform has approached or exceeded the total of other major platforms. Based on high trading volume, Binance has global pricing power for price discovery and risk hedging of BTC and mainstream derivative contracts, which makes it have greater influence on market trends and fluctuations.
OKX
OKX maintained a relatively high volume of derivatives contracts in the first half of 2025, with an average daily volume of about $30 billion, and the overall range fluctuated between $20 billion and $40 billion, but there is still a large gap in volume compared with Binance. OKX's volume showed significant volatility, especially during periods of drastic market fluctuations, with daily volume significantly amplified several times, indicating that its platform still has strong market responsiveness and attractiveness. Most of the time, OKX's volume remained in a relatively stable range, but overall it was still slightly inferior to Binance and some fast-growing emerging platforms, which shows that OKX still has a solid user base and liquidity in the derivatives market, but its high growth momentum is gradually weakening.
In 2025, OKX's strategic focus has clearly shifted from traditional centralized exchanges (CEX) to Web3 and wallet ecology. The explosive growth of OKX Wallet has promoted the development of its DeFi, on-chain asset management, NFT and DApp integrated ecology, attracting a large number of new users and on-chain asset migration, but this has also led to a slowdown in the growth of derivatives trading volume on the OKX CEX side, and some active users and assets have flowed to the on-chain or multi-chain ecology. Although the derivatives trading volume of the platform CEX is still at the forefront of the industry, the growth logic and liquidity pattern are undergoing profound changes. OKX's derivatives trading volume remained stable in the first half of 2025, but its growth momentum was not as good as that of the head platform. Whether it can achieve a new round of breakthroughs in the future with Web3 businesses such as OKX Wallet will become a key variable in determining its market positioning.
Bybit
In the first half of 2025, Bybit showed a steady trading activity in the perpetual contract market. The trading volume is densely distributed, and there has been no long-term trading exhaustion, indicating that its user base is active and liquidity is sustained. The average daily trading volume is US$17 billion to US$35 billion. Bybit ranks third in the global perpetual contract market, second only to Binance and OKX, with a market share of about 10%-15%. Its peak trading volume can be on par with that of OKX in some periods, highlighting its strong competitiveness in the crypto derivatives market. Although there is still a significant gap with Binance, Bybit has latecomer advantages in retail trading experience, Web3 community influence, and emerging market expansion. Bybit has a higher penetration rate in the European, American and Southeast Asian markets and a stronger brand influence. It is expected to continue to erode the market share of mid- and lower-tier platforms and narrow the gap with the second-ranked OKX.
Bitget
In the first half of 2025, Bitget showed significant growth momentum in the global crypto derivatives market, especially in the field of perpetual contract trading. According to CoinGlass data, Bitget's daily average perpetual contract trading volume has steadily increased to the range of US$15 billion to US$30 billion, with a peak of nearly US$90 billion, showing its strong performance in the market. The platform meets diverse trading needs through a rich range of perpetual contract targets and attracts a large number of young users to participate, especially in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and Latin America. Through localized marketing and brand cooperation, it has enhanced brand influence and user coverage. In addition, Bitget continues to advance in technological innovation, optimize the trading system, and improve user experience, further consolidating its market position. Although there is still a certain gap with Binance and OKX, it has become one of the exchanges with the most potential to advance to the top camp.
Gate
In the first half of 2025, Gate's contract trading sector showed significant growth momentum, with the average daily trading volume steadily increasing to the range of US$10 billion to US$30 billion, and the highest peak once approaching US$60 billion, indicating that the trading activity of the platform's derivatives market continued to fluctuate at a high level in the industry. From the perspective of trading volume growth and market share expansion, Gate has gradually established a differentiated advantage in the current global digital asset derivatives market competition landscape and strengthened its influence in emerging markets and small and medium-sized investor groups.
The platform continues to expand the coverage of contract varieties, optimizes the matrix of multiple derivatives such as perpetual contracts, options, leveraged products, etc., and meets the needs of user groups with different risk preferences and investment needs. Although there is still a gap with leading platforms such as Binance and OKX, Gate has become one of the most growth-oriented and influential emerging contract trading platforms with its steady growth and differentiated competitive advantages, and has attracted much attention in the industry.
Hyperliquid
Hyperliquid is one of the new emerging decentralized derivatives exchanges (DEX) in the period of 2023-2025. As of the first half of 2025, Hyperliquid's average daily trading volume has steadily exceeded $3 billion, and the daily trading volume during some peak periods has exceeded $17 billion. Hyperliquid uses the protogenesis link's self-developed matching technology to achieve extremely low latency and high liquidity without the need for oracle settlement, significantly improving transaction depth and price efficiency.
Hyperliquid's trading volume has the highest month-on-month growth rate (monthly and quarterly) in the DEX industry, and its core indicators such as the number of active users, TVL (total locked value), and protocol revenue have also significantly surpassed traditional DEX. In the past year, Hyperliquid has achieved explosive growth from an average daily trading volume of less than $100 million to as high as $3-5 billion. Its growth rate and speed are unprecedented in the DEX field. Hyperliquid currently occupies more than 80% of the DeFi perpetual contract market.
In-depth analysis of exchange markets
Market depth is an important indicator to measure the cumulative amount and distribution of buy and sell quotes at different prices in the exchange order book, which directly reflects the market's liquidity level and transaction carrying capacity. For cryptocurrency exchanges, deep market depth can effectively reduce the impact of large transactions on prices, reduce slippage, and improve users' trading experience and cost efficiency. This is particularly important for attracting professional liquidity participants such as high-frequency traders and institutional market makers, because they usually need to maintain the stability of asset prices in the case of large and frequent entries and exits. The abundance of market depth also lays the foundation for the stable operation of derivatives markets such as contracts and options, helps to form a tight bid-ask spread, and enhances the price discovery function and risk hedging efficiency of the overall market.
According to CoinGlass data, Binance continues to maintain an absolute leading position in BTC market depth among global cryptocurrency spot exchanges. The median order book depth in the market is maintained in the range of 20 million to 25 million US dollars per side, and Binance occupies about 32% of the market share with a unilateral depth of about 8 million US dollars, far ahead of the second-ranked Bitget (about 4.6 million US dollars) and the third-ranked OKX (about 3.7 million US dollars). More noteworthy is that in terms of the indicator of more than 1 million US dollars in pending order depth, only Binance has achieved a depth of more than 1 million US dollars per side, while the rest of the mainstream exchanges are less than 500,000 US dollars. Binance's absolute lead in BTC market depth fully reflects its excellent liquidity level as the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, while other exchanges such as OKX and Bybit still have room to catch up in market depth and liquidity.
V. Conclusion
In the first half of 2025, the cryptocurrency derivatives market showed strong resilience and structural differentiation against the backdrop of global macro turmoil and rising geopolitical risks. On the one hand, driven by the continuous inflow of spot ETF funds and the upsurge of institutional allocation, BTC not only broke through its historical highs, but also remained at a high level of consolidation, and the scale of the derivatives market and open interest both hit new highs. In terms of market structure, the proportion of compliant exchanges such as CME has increased, and the ETF effect has continued to strengthen BTC's positioning as an "institutional allocation asset", leading to a deep change in the risk preference of the entire sector. On the other hand, ETH and mainstream altcoins have suffered from multiple pressures on technology, ecology and capital, and their overall performance has been weak. The ETH/BTC ratio has fallen sharply, the investment sentiment of altcoins has been cautious, and there is a lack of new technological innovation and application scenario drivers within the sector.
From the perspective of trading, the overall leverage structure of derivatives tends to be healthy, and the scale of futures and options markets continues to expand. Leverage risks have been effectively released after several violent market conditions. Open interest and liquidity in the options market have reached record highs, while implied volatility remains low, and long and short forces tend to be balanced. The options market is active, and bullish and risk-averse demands coexist. Under the contradictory pattern of high positions and low volatility, the market still needs to be vigilant against the sudden risks of "black swan" events. The large-scale liquidation of long and short positions that broke out in 2025 not only released the market leverage risk, but also created conditions for subsequent price repair and market stabilization. At the platform level, Binance continues to maintain its liquidity and pricing power advantages in the global market. OKX, Bybit, Bitget, etc. are also strengthening their competitiveness in their respective market segments. Decentralized derivatives exchanges such as Hyperliquid have shown explosive growth, and the innovative vitality of the DeFi sector has been continuously released.
Looking ahead to the second half of 2025, the core variables of the market will still be macro policies, ETF flows and risk preference switching. If there is a substantial adjustment in the Fed's interest rate policy, or the ETH spot ETF pledge mechanism is implemented, it is expected to become an important catalyst for the repair of risk preference. Overall, BTC's "macro asset" characteristics are becoming more and more prominent, the institutionalization and compliance trends in the derivatives market are accelerating, and the leading platforms and innovative protocols continue to benefit. At the same time, regulatory policies, sudden risks and liquidity changes are still unresolved structural challenges. Investors need to continue to pay attention to market leverage and liquidity indicators, dynamically adjust risk exposure, and actively seek a balance between asset allocation and risk hedging in the cycle switching and innovation wave.
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The exchanges included in the data calculation in this article are: Binance, OKX, Bybit, CME, Bitmex, Deribit, Kraken, Bitfinex, HTX, Bitget, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Gate.io, Hyperliquid, Mexc, Kucoin in no particular order. The data statistical period is from January 1, 2025 to June 1, 2025, as of UTC+0 00:00 on that day. The data not marked in the article is from CoinGlass by default.
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