A DeFi platform says its decentralized approach to leveraged trading offers crucial advantages over centralized rivals. Gains.farm says it offers real-time prices and lightning-fast transactions — and boasts a network of five Chainlink nodes that delivers up-to-date information from seven trusted data sources, with results that are aggregated by taking the median two times. This approach has delivered users an all-important upper hand during the recent bout of volatility that shook the crypto markets, which saw the values of Bitcoin and Ether fall dramatically within a few hours. Gains.farm claims its platform was one of the few protocols that delivered …

Bitcoin (BTC) has been struggling to sustain the $55,000 support level for the past 16 days, or basically since the April 17 record-high $5-billion long contracts liquidation. The rejection that took place after the $64,900 all-time high had a devastating impact on the sentiment of retail traders, as measured by the significant drop in the perpetual futures funding rate. However, despite Bitcoin's recent underperformance and May 4's 6.5% drop, pro traders have been buying the dip for the past 24 hours. These whales and arbitrage desk movements are reflected in the OKEx futures long-to-short ratio, as well as Bitfinex's margin …

As Ether (ETH) made a $2,800 all-time on April 29, so did its futures open interest. The $8.5 billion figure marks a 52% monthly increase and shows robust trading activity behind the meteoric price rise. Some analysts might dismiss Ether derivatives, considering CME's future has $355 million in open interest compared to Bitcoin's $2.4 billion. However, Ether contracts were only launched a couple of months ago. Both FTX and Deribit require 100% full-KYC for their clients, and these markets hold a combined $2 billion in ETH open interest. To this in perspective, the open interest on silver futures currently stands …

As Bitcoin (BTC) lost the $52,000 support on April 22, the futures contracts funding rate entered negative terrain. This uncommon situation causes the shorts, investors betting on price downside, to pay fees every eight hours. While the rate itself is mildly damaging, this situation creates incentives for arbitrage desks and market makers to buy perpetual contracts (inverse swaps) while simultaneously selling the future monthly contracts. The cheaper it is for long-term leverage, the higher the incentives for bulls to open positions, creating a perfect "bear trap." The above chart shows how unusual a negative funding rate is, and typically it …

The price of Ether (ETH) fell by 19.6% on April 18, resulting in the quick liquidation of $1 billion in long futures contracts. Despite the size of this record liquidation and its impact on Ether's price, the futures open interest remained above $20.5 billion, which is 5% below the previous month. After the sell-off, there were signs that investor sentiment deteriorated, which was evident in derivatives markets. Historically, there's much higher borrowing demand for Ether longs as opposed to shorts. Over the past couple of days, the long-to-short ratio has flipped, reaching the lowest level since December 2018. There's hardly …

Bitcoin (BTC) has been struggling to break the $60,000 resistance for almost a month. But despite the impasse, BTC futures markets have never been so bullish. While regular spot exchanges are trading near $59,600, the BTC contracts maturing in June are trading above $65,000. Futures contracts tend to trade at a premium, mainly on neutral-to-bullish markets, and this happens on every asset, including commodities, equities, indexes and currencies. However, a 50% annualized premium (basis) for contracts expiring in three months is highly uncommon. Unlike the perpetual contract — or inverse swap — these fixed-calendar futures do not have a funding …

The Bitcoin markets emphatically rejected the $60,000 price range on March 15, with excessive leverage driving a record $500 million worth of long liquidations over just 60 minutes. Glassnode’s founders, Jan & Yann, emphasized the new record hourly Bitcoin for liquidations, noting that more than half open futures contracts prior to the margin calls were leveraged by at least 20 times. In the last hour alone, nearly $500M in #Bitcoin Longs got liquidated, this is a historic ATH. There is excess greed in the system, with 60% of contracts levered 20x or more. Long liquidations are an artifact of the …

According to on-chain analytics provider Glassnode, the late-February crypto market correction may have purged excessive leverage from the markets. On March 1, Glassnode published a report analyzing the recent crypto crash, which was only the second significant crypto correction since the markets pushed into new record highs in late 2020. Glassnode noted that the crash peaked with a 25% fall in the price of Bitcoin (BTC) from the local top of $58,300 to $43,343. As such, the move was weaker than January’s dip, which saw a roughly 30% retracement from $42,000 to less than $30,000. The analytics provider suggested that …

In the last 24-hours, Ether (ETH) rallied above $1,900 to a new all-time high and this breakout reflects a strong 45% gain for just February alone. Aside from Ether following Bitcoin's (BTC) bullish momentum, the move has been partially fueled by the news that BlackRock is considering future cryptocurrency investments and Microstrategy's $900 million convertible notes offer to buy more Bitcoin. The growing popularity of decentralized exchanges (DEX) has also been a huge booster of Ether price and earlier this week Uniswap reached $100 billion in cumulative volume. This signals just how relevant the Ethereum-based DeFi ecosystem has become. The …

A number of TV shows have mentioned Bitcoin (BTC) or other cryptocurrencies over the years, including Big Bang Theory in 2017 and The Simpsons in 2020. One of the latest crypto mentions occurred during the premiere of the 11th season of Shameless, in an episode called “This is Chicago.” “It’s my crypto,” character Dash says, elaborating, “My Bitcoin. It’s down 30 and I was using it to leverage my Tether and my Ethereum.” Another character responded: “I have no idea what you just said.” Dash continued: “Oil futures gutted my portfolio last spring. So if there’s another two-point drop on …

There are hundreds of crypto exchanges in existence — but often, they all offer the exact same products. All of this can be nothing short of frustrating for traders as their needs don’t end up being met. But now, one platform is shaking things up by becoming one of the few exchanges worldwide to offer a margin trading terminal. WhiteBIT also says its top priority is catering to underserved markets in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Europe. WhiteBIT’s terminal is initially offering up to 5x leverage, meaning traders can borrow funds and potentially amplify returns if their strategies …

On Nov. 4, crypto data market aggregator CryptoQuant published a chart indicating Binance’s Estimated Leverage Ratio (open interest divided by Bitcoin (BTC) reserves) has pushed into new all-time highs. The record was set on Nov. 3 after a spike in open interest pushed Binance’s ELR above 0.18 for the first time. The spike in ELR came shortly before Bitcoin established a double-bottom at roughly $13,400. New data suggests Bitcoin’s bullish push into 2020 highs above $14,000 may have been fueled by leverage, which could mean markets will continue to see significant volatility in the short term. However, Binance also recorded …