Altcoin News | Bitcoin's Share of Crypto Open Interest Climbs to 42.1% as Altcoin Leverage Unwinds
Bitcoin traded around $77,000, up 0.7% since midnight UTC but still down roughly 0.9% over 24 hours. The token sits 6% below the $82,284 high it reached last week.
Ether rose 1.6% Friday and is also higher over 24 hours, one of the few large-caps to recover its overnight losses. Solana added just under 1% since midnight.
In the CoinDesk 100, 68 constituents are higher on the day — a reversal after Thursday's 86-14 split the other way. The index has added 0.5% though it remains 1.6% lower over 24 hours, with 80 constituents still down on that longer timeframe.
The Altcoin Open Interest Crossover Is Already Reversing
The derivatives picture contains the session's most consequential shift.
Aggregate open interest across crypto futures fell to $59.5 billion from $62.4 billion on Wednesday, on $94.2 billion of 24-hour volume, per Coinalyze. Liquidations reached $256.3 million over the past day, up from $142.3 million midweek.
Bitcoin open interest is broadly unchanged at $25 billion, up 0.12% over 24 hours — and now accounts for 42.1% of the market total.
That figure stood at roughly 37% on September 6, when altcoin perpetual open interest passed Bitcoin's for the first time since December 2024. Bitcoin's share has climbed five points in under a week without its own positioning changing at all.
The entire move came from altcoin leverage coming off. Bitcoin did not gain share by attracting capital. Everything else lost it.
Coinalyze's aggregated series shows Bitcoin open interest peaking near $26.8 billion on September 4 and grinding lower since, so positioning has been coming off for a week rather than in a single flush.
Zcash Saw the Sharpest Unwind
Zcash open interest dropped 20.1% to $1.4 billion as the price fell 9% to $1,112.10, with $17.2 million liquidated.
Funding turned negative at −0.0016%, the only major token with a negative rate.
That combination is a clean reversal of what was building through early September. Zcash open interest had reached a record $2.4 billion as the token gained 134% in 30 days and cleared $1,000 for the first time since 2016, hitting a record $1,260 on Tuesday. Open interest had risen steadily alongside price since August 1 — a textbook long buildup.
Long buildups unwind. A token carrying $2.4 billion of open interest against a small fraction of Top 100 market capitalization has a considerably worse liquidation profile than one carrying $25 billion against two-thirds of it, and that is what played out.
Zcash has since added 3.4% since midnight to $1,116.06, though it remains 8.8% lower over 24 hours — the steepest 24-hour drop among tokens with a market cap above $10 billion.
Hyperliquid and XRP both saw open interest fall around 5% over 24 hours, to $2.5 billion and $1.2 billion respectively.
Positioning Sits Close to Balanced
Bitcoin accounted for $60.3 million of liquidations and ether $46.5 million — together more than 40% of the total, which is roughly proportional to their share of open interest rather than evidence of concentrated stress.
Funding remains positive but subdued. Bitcoin's aggregated rate sits at 0.0036% with the predicted rate at 0.0026%.
The aggregated long/short accounts ratio stands at 1.114, with longs at 52.67% against shorts at 47.29% — close to balanced.
A market this evenly positioned into a binary event is unusual, and it means the CPI print faces relatively little forced flow in either direction. The violent moves in recent months have come when positioning was skewed. It currently is not.
Traditional Markets Are Firmer Across the Board
S&P 500 futures gained 0.48% and Nasdaq futures 0.56%. Gold rose 0.74% and silver 0.92%, while the Dollar Index was unchanged.
The memecoin index was crypto's biggest gainer, adding 0.73% since midnight. As with Thursday, the speculative end is moving furthest — in the opposite direction this time.
CoinMarketCap's Altcoin Season indicator sits at 38/100, in neutral territory after spiking to 51/100 on Tuesday. That retreat is consistent with the open interest data: the altcoin rotation that produced Tuesday's reading has partially unwound.
Theta and Raydium Lead the Index
Theta Network leads the CoinDesk 100, up 11% since midnight to $0.19 and 6.9% higher over 24 hours.
Solana-based DEX token Raydium gained 10% on the day to $1.60 and 18% over 24 hours — a third consecutive session at the top of the index after rises of 5.8% and 8.5% earlier in the week.
Perpetuals exchange token Lighter rose 5.8% to $4.54, recovering part of a 15% fall over the previous 24 hours. Morpho climbed 3.6% to $2.34 and is 2.3% higher over 24 hours, one of the few mid-caps positive on both timeframes.
CPI at 8:30 a.m. ET Is the Last Release Before the FOMC
August consumer price data arrives Friday morning, the final major release before the Fed sets rates September 15-16.
Core is forecast at 0.2% month-over-month with headline at 0.4%, largely on the energy shock that has carried Brent as high as $109 after Saudi crude production fell to its lowest since 1990.
QCP framed the setup for Bitcoin specifically: "This is the worst mix for Bitcoin: a competing 5% risk-free rate without the nominal-growth impulse that usually accompanies yield moves."
Hike odds range from 61% on Polymarket to 76% on CME FedWatch, a spread indicating genuine disagreement rather than settled pricing.
Once US markets close, spot Bitcoin ETF trading pauses until Monday, leaving the weekend to absorb any escalation with materially thinner liquidity.
