BTC and ETH open interest hits new all-time high as Bitcoin nears $100,000

Open interest for bitcoin and ethereum in the futures markets each hit a new all-time high in the last 24 hours of trading, following bitcoin's flirtation with $100,000.

On November 22, bitcoin (btc) OI reached a high of $57 billion in the last 24 hours. Meanwhile, ethereum(eth) OI rose 12% to an all-time high of $20.8 billion in the same period. Both cryptocurrencies have racked up their highest cumulative open interest following declines earlier in the month.

Open interest is a metric in the crypto industry that is used to show the number of outstanding futures contracts employed on exchanges. A higher interest level indicates that a crypto asset is more liquid and has significant demand.

This surge came a few hours after bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $99,486, moving even closer to the $100,000 mark. ethereum also saw a 7% increase

Based on data from glass coinbtc open interest currently stands at $64.08 billion, with most of it coming from CME. CME owns over 33% of the total OI bitcoin futures with 216,820 btc, valued at $21.23 billion.

This is followed by Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume, holding 19.2% of the total btc OI, with open interest of over 124,740 btc worth around $12.22 billion.

Bybit is in third place with 13.39% of btc OI, reaching 87,020 btc or $8.53 billion, while Bitget and OKX are in the top five, each with 9.87% and 8.4% respectively.

On the ethereum side, eth OI amounts to a total of $20.08 billion. Unlike bitcoin, Binance accounts for the majority of eth open interest, holding 31.19% of the total with 1.9 million eth, valued at $20.09 billion.

Bybit is in second place with 18.18% of eth OI, holding 1.11 million eth worth around $3.65 billion. In third place is CME, with 663,180 eth, valued at $2.19 billion. CME holds around 10.88% of the total eth OI in the market.

OKX and HTX are in the top five, with each exchange holding 9.38% and 7.82% respectively.