Data from April 28th of the CME’s Bitcoin Futures COT report show an increase in the spread between long and short positions.
While retail investors are preferring long positions, probably waiting for a price increase, institutional investors and leveraged funds seem to prefer short positions.
This is a situation that often occurs when there is FOMO among retail investors, while institutional investors reduce leverage or sell.
The consequence of this could be a price increase followed by a decrease, when the momentum of retail investors’ purchases is exhausted and institutional investors return to buy at lower prices.
According to this possible interpretation, the rise in the price of bitcoin, which has been going on for a few weeks now, could stop shortly, perhaps at the turn of the halving which could be followed by a fall.
The current recovery seems to be closing the gap that was formed in mid-March with the collapse of the financial markets, bringing the price of BTC back to a level similar to the pre-collapse of the first week of March.
However, the volume of Bitcoin futures contracts traded on both Bakkt and CME is on the rise after the recent decline, which suggests that the price could also continue to rise in the long term.
Huobi futures have more long positions
With regard to futures traded on Huobi, there is currently a prevalence of long positions, 57% of the total, compared to 43% of short positions, but it is not known how many of these belong to retail investors and how many belong to institutional investors or funds.
It cannot be excluded that the situation may be similar to that of the CME, with long positions open mainly by retail investors and short positions open by professional investors.
Among other things, the open interest in bitcoin futures has been growing in recent days and this shows a growing interest in possible market movements in the coming days.
