While notional open interest has dropped, OI in BTC terms has held steady alongside positive funding rates.futures and perpetual futures, a crucial market sentiment gauge, has declined roughly 18% from $37 billion to $30.2 billion in one month, alongside a 14% slide decline in the cryptocurrency's spot market price, according to data source
Open interest refers to the number of active or open contracts at a given time, and notional open interest is calculated by multiplying the number of units in one contract by its current spot market price. Therefore, changes in the asset price impact notional open interest even as the total number of contracts remains steady, thereby painting a misleading picture of market activity.Per Coinglass, open interest has remained steady above the 500,000 BTC mark over four weeks.
Perhaps traders are hopeful that once the selling pressure from Mt. Gox reimbursements and miners is exhausted, bitcoin could resume the upward trend, keeping pace with the Nasdaq.A similar conclusion can be drawn from the consistent positive spread between futures and spot prices, widely referred to as basis.