Bitcoin traders are hungry for more action after the top cryptocurrency hit an all-time high north of $123,000 earlier this month.
Now, with July coming to a close, total open interest in Bitcoin futures and perpetuals has surged to a record $44.6 billion ahead of the monthly expiry on Friday, according to CryptoQuant data.
Despite an overnight swoon that dragged Bitcoin from around $119,000 to a brief dip below $115,000, traders are still leaning long.
Funding rates remain modestly positive across major exchanges, suggesting a majority of traders are cautiously positioning for further upside rather than panicking out of their longs.
Cluster of wagers
PolyMarket bettors appear to agree.
The largest cluster of wagers on where Bitcoin’s price is headed is centered at the $125,000 level, according to the prediction platform’s market for month-end pricing.
Other traders, however, are worried about falling back to an unfilled gap on the CME Bitcoin futures chart — a zone between roughly $113,900 and $116,100 that’s been untouched since the weekend of July 5.
Because CME futures pause trading over the weekend, gaps sometimes appear when Bitcoin’s price moves on crypto exchanges while CME is offline. These gaps often get revisited in the days or weeks that follow.
Still, many analysts say the long-term outlook hasn’t changed.
Arthur Hayes, CIO of Maelstrom and the former BitMEX CEO, said in a blog post this week that Bitcoin remains the best asset to own in a world of expanding credit and fiat debasement.
Best horse
“Bitcoin is the best horse to ride if you believe there will be more units of fiat created in the future,” he wrote, predicting the price could reach $250,000 by the end of the year.
Other major institutions, including Bitwise, Bernstein, and Standard Chartered, have issued similar targets ranging from $200,000 to $250,000.
