In the risk dimension, the changes in the open contract data of BTC and ETH are worth paying close attention to. Open contracts, as a core indicator of measuring the total market position, directly reflect the degree of participation of leveraged funds and the intensity of competition. Recently, as the prices of the two assets have rebounded, the scale of open contracts for both has significantly increased, but the market logic and risk characteristics behind them show obvious differentiation.
The open contracts of BTC exhibit a phased characteristic. Previously, due to significant divergence in market views on macro policies and technical trends, investors were heavily cautious, and the scale of open contracts remained low. In the past month, with the price center moving up and the trend becoming clearer, open contracts have continued to rise, indicating increased attention from leveraged funds. However, from the perspective of capital structure, BTC's rise is still primarily driven by spot trading: on-chain data shows that long-term holders (holding positions for over a year) account for over 65%, and the frequency of large spot wallet increases is higher than that in the derivatives market, indicating that investors prefer to achieve long-term allocation through spot trading. Coupled with solid buying support, although the leveraged attributes have increased, they remain controllable.
The changes in ETH's open contracts are more aggressive, recently continuously breaking through nearly one-year highs and creating a phased peak. This is directly related to the way funds have entered the market: incremental funds for ETH are more involved through the futures market and ETF products, with investors relying more on leveraged tools and derivatives to bet on short-term trends. Behind this structure is a strong competition in the market regarding ETH's ecological upgrades (such as Layer 2 expansion) and policy expectations, with short-term FOMO sentiment driving accelerated inflows of leveraged funds.
It is important to be cautious that the rise in open contracts often indicates a potential increase in volatility. The higher the proportion of leveraged funds, the more intense the long-short position competition, and when prices break through critical thresholds, the probability of large-scale liquidations increases, which can easily trigger short-term sharp rises and falls. In comparison, ETH, due to its higher dependence on leverage, faces significantly greater short-term volatility risks than BTC during policy-sensitive periods (such as before and after Powell's speeches).
Overall, the differences in open contracts between the two types of assets essentially reflect the differentiation of market participation logic: BTC embodies stronger long-term allocation attributes, while ETH is more dominated by short-term speculative funds. This means that as policy nodes approach, ETH needs to focus on preventing liquidation risks under high leverage, while BTC's volatility may be relatively mild, but attention should still be paid to the disturbance of the trend caused by the increase in leveraged funds.
