Ethereum open interest on Binance continues its slide - Coinfea

Ethereum open interest has been struggling since October 10, posting declines on Binance. The recent deleveraging is part of a longer-term process, characterized by significant outflows of open interest on Binance.

According to reports, Ethereum open interest on Binance declined by 51% in the past three months, following the October 11 crash. Since then, open interest has made attempts to recover on other exchanges. On Binance, ETH open interest continued to decline, evaporating nearly $6.4B in positions in the past three months. The recent shift in open interest signals a market reset and a re-evaluation of Ethereum’s potential.

Ethereum enters its most speculative period in history

The past year turned into the most speculative period for ETH, raising open interest on Binance to a peak of $12.6B in August. Ethereum also got a boost from robust ETF interest, the growth of the L2 economy, and the continued recovery of DeFi, staking, lending, and stablecoin transfers. However, the asset failed to break out to a higher range and only triggered a short altcoin season.

After an aggressively bullish period, Ethereum built a less sustainable market structure, which started showing signs of a bear market. ETH briefly switched to spot trading as a compensation for weakening open interest, but the trading failed to sustain the market price. For years, ETH traded as a utility token, while most of its projects were small-scale or experimental.

The confidence that Ethereum could become a global settlement platform for finance set expectations that the ETH token may be more valuable. Speculative open interest rode on the back of the bullish conviction, but quickly unraveled when ETH failed to rally. Other exchanges also lost their liquidity, with Gate dropping to $3.5B, and Bybit down to $2.3B from $6.1B.

In addition, Hyperliquid saw its Ethereum open interest decline to $1.3 billion. In total, ETH positions declined to $15B, with a balanced ratio of long and short positions. The drop in trading activity coincided with a 43% slide for ETH, from a peak of $4,830 to $2,800. ETH still trades at 0.032 BTC, as the leading coin abandoned its higher range.

Ethereum ended November with a total decline of 22.2%. From the beginning of 2025 to date, despite the active speculative trading, ETH has only had three months in the green. The token went through short-term rallies that proved unsustainable. November’s performance was the second-weakest since February, when ETH contracted by 32.2%.