Bitcoin’s open interest has been the subject of debate over the past week, with various online platforms revealing its recent record growth. However, investment analytics firm Alphractal disputed the claim that open interest in BTC has reached a novel record high.

Interestingly, a leading crypto analytics platform has provided novel data on Bitcoin’s open interest, revealing that the rate has actually reached record highs over the past week. Here is its potential impact on the BTC price.

Are Bitcoin Investors Taking More Risk?

In a novel post on the X platform, Glassnode revealed that open interest in Bitcoin across all exchanges has reached a novel all-time high.

Glassnode wrote on X:

Open Interest in both perpetual and futures saw $32.9 billion in novel ATH this week, suggesting a marked raise in total leverage entering the system.

In context, open interest is an indicator that measures the total amount of futures or derivatives contracts for a specific cryptocurrency (BTC in this scenario) in the market at a given time. It typically offers insight into the amount of funds currently invested in Bitcoin futures. Rising open interest also suggests a shift in investor sentiment and an raise in market speculation, with many traders preparing for market moves.

Source: Glassnode/X

With open interest in Bitcoin rising to a novel record high of $32.9 billion last week, it shows that fresh capital is flowing into the most valuable market in the cryptocurrency industry. While this indicator does not provide information on whether these novel futures positions are bearish or bullish, it does indicate the likelihood of greater market volatility.

As highlighted by Glassnode on X, there is a significant raise in total leverage entering the Bitcoin derivatives market. Historically, the market tends to witness significant and unrehearsed price fluctuations whenever investors exhibit increased risky behavior.

This market outlook spells compelling next weeks for the Bitcoin price, which did not make much of an impression in October. After creating powerful bullish momentum in the previous week, the leading cryptocurrency has failed to capitalize in the past few days.

BTC price at a glance

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading just below the $67,000 mark, reflecting a decline of 2.1% in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, according to CoinGecko data, the main cryptocurrency is down by about the same amount on a weekly basis.

The price of BTC on the daily timeframe | Source: BTCUSDT chart on TradingView

Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView