Ether futures traders are piling into leveraged bets even as the ether price remains under pressure in 2026. Binance’s open interest in ETH futures has surged to about 3.7 million ETH, accounting for more than 44% of total Ether futures exposure and marking a new all-time high for the exchange.

Analysts note that the move comes amid mounting geopolitical uncertainty and softer macro indicators. CryptoQuant data highlighted the fresh peak on Binance, underscoring a shift in risk appetite within the derivatives space even as spot prices lag.

Key takeaways

• Binance ETH futures open interest hits about 3.7 million ETH, representing over 44% of global Ether futures exposure.
• Taker buy-sell activity on the weekly average climbs to around 1.0 on Binance, up from 0.95, indicating a more balanced market after a stretch of selling pressure.
• Across all exchanges, the taker buy-sell ratio rises to 1.0 from 0.94 in two weeks, signaling increasing buyer participation in market orders.
• Perpetual futures activity surges relative to spot, with Binance’s perp-spot volume imbalance near 0.90 and a 30-day Z-score of 2.53, suggesting rising leveraged bets outpacing spot demand.
• Inter-exchange positioning diverges: Binance’s 30-day open interest increases by about 616,400 ETH (the strongest since 2019), while Gate.io shows a decline of roughly 631,700 ETH.
• Liquidation risk remains pronounced, with heatmaps showing nearly $8 billion in short positions clustered between $2,200 and $2,400, and sizable long and short liquidation exposure near key levels around $1,500 and $1,800.

Open interest surge highlights rising leverage in ETH futures

Data compiled from CryptoQuant points to an elevated risk posture among ETH futures traders. Binance’s open interest stands near 3.7 million ETH, a fresh record for the exchange, and this figure constitutes a substantial portion of total ether futures activity globally. The size of the position book implies that even modest price swings could trigger outsized margin calls and rapid liquidations if market sentiment shifts abruptly.

The persistence of high leverage comes as Ether’s price retreat so far in 2026 contrasts with robust activity in the futures market. While spot demand remains uncertain, derivatives traders have continued to express a willingness to take on risk, suggesting that some market participants anticipate a more decisive price move in the near term rather than a slow grind higher.

Market breadth shifts: a more balanced but still fragile derivative landscape

The ratio of taker buys to sells—an indicator of immediate demand in the order book—has inched toward a balanced stance. Binance’s weekly average taker buy-sell ratio rose to 1.0 from 0.95, a signal that buyers are re-entering the market after a period dominated by sellers. Across all exchanges, the broader market shows a similar uptick, with the ratio moving from 0.94 to 1.0 over the past two weeks. While this suggests a pickup in market-order activity from buyers, the level of overall leverage remains high, meaning risk can materialize quickly if liquidity thins or price moves reverse.

In parallel, the tilt toward derivatives over spot activity intensified. Perpetual futures volume on Binance has surged relative to spot trading, with the perp-spot volume imbalance hovering near record levels around 0.90 and a 30-day Z-score of 2.53. This paints a picture of a market where leveraged bets are expanding faster than the underlying cash market—an environment prone to sharp reversals if headlines or macro data shift sentiment.

Inter-exchange positioning reveals shifting liquidity dynamics

A closer look at exchange-level metrics shows a bifurcated picture. Binance registered a 30-day jump in open interest of approximately 616,400 ETH—the strongest reading since 2019—indicating fresh capital inflows into the exchange’s ETH futures book. In contrast, Gate.io recorded a significant decline of about 631,700 ETH in the same window. The divergence hints at liquidity moving within the ecosystem, with traders reallocating risk across venues or adjusting strategies in response to evolving funding costs, liquidity conditions, and risk controls.

The shifting open interest landscape matters because it concentrates risk into a smaller set of venues and can amplify price impacts if lightning-fast liquidations occur on days of heightened volatility. For traders, it underscores the importance of monitoring where liquidity sits and how quickly it can move in response to price dynamics or regulatory developments that affect margin requirements and funding rates.

Liquidation risk map: a pressure point for near-term price moves

Risk analytics show a delicate balance in the current setup. Heatmaps indicate that roughly $8 billion in short positions are clustered in a liquidity corridor between $2,200 and $2,400. This area could become a magnet for liquidations if ETH tests higher levels, creating a squeeze dynamic for leveraged longs. Conversely, there is substantial exposure to liquidations on the long side: about $1.72 billion in long liquidations sits below the current price around $1,500, while roughly $1.90 billion in short liquidations sits near $1,800. The proximity of these pools suggests a tight tether between bullish and bearish bets, where a relatively small move could trigger a cascade of liquidations in either direction.

Such asymmetries in liquidation exposure highlight the risk of abrupt spikes in funding costs and price volatility as traders adjust to evolving risk controls and margin requirements across major exchanges. The current configuration implies that both sides of the book remain vulnerable to rapid price transitions if liquidity pockets are tested simultaneously by macro surprises or shifts in trader sentiment.

As ETH traders weigh the next moves, a few lines of development will bear watching. First, any sustained move in open interest away from its current high plateau could signal a shift in where leverage concentrates, potentially altering price pressure in the weeks ahead. Second, a broadening of risk appetite across more venues could spread liquidity more evenly, reducing the likelihood of single-exchange bottlenecks during stress. Finally, the trajectory of macro and geopolitical cues will continue to influence funding costs and margin dynamics, feeding into how quickly leveraged positions unwind or extend their gains.

In the near term, traders should remain mindful of the entrenched leverage in the Ether market and the concentrated risk around key strike zones. A break above or below the $2,000–$2,400 range could trigger a wave of liquidations that either accelerates upside momentum or deepens downside pain, depending on the narrative driving risk appetite at the moment.

Readers should stay tuned for updates as derivatives data evolve, and as macro developments unfold that could recalibrate the balance between leveraged bets and underlying demand. The next moves in ETH futures open interest, funding costs, and liquidation heatmaps will likely offer early signals about how the market judges the path for Ether in the months ahead.

SpaceX is officially set for the largest IPO on record.

Elon Musk’s reusable rocket company is raising $75 billion, selling 555.6 million shares for $135 a piece, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The deal values SpaceX at $1.77 trillion, making it the seventh most-valuable U.S. company, ahead of Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle maker.

SpaceX’s Nasdaq debut will come Friday, when the masses will have their first opportunity to buy into the 24-year-old company. Betting on SpaceX at this price is largely a wager on Musk, as the company is burning cash and is far smaller by revenue than any of its trillion-dollar peers.

SpaceX said in its prospectus that revenue increased 15% to $4.69 billion in the first quarter from $4.07 billion a year earlier. For all of last year, revenue jumped 33% to $18.67 billion. The company recorded a net loss in the latest quarter of $4.28 billion after losing $4.94 billion in 2025.

In addition to its space business, Musk’s company owns the Starlink satellite internet service, which accounts for the bulk of its revenue and is the only profitable unit, and artificial intelligence division xAI, which merged with SpaceX in February.

SpaceX said in its IPO filing that capital expenditures in the first quarter reached $10.1 billion, more than doubling from a year earlier. The vast majority of those costs — $7.7 billion — were for AI, with the rest spent on space and connectivity.

The company has racked up a cumulative deficit of around $41.3 billion since it was founded in 2002. It warned investors in its prospectus that it may not achieve profitability in the future.

Some of the IPO drama was removed last week, when SpaceX set a fixed price of $135 a share. New issuers would typically offer a price range that allows a company and its advisers to gauge demand sensitivity at different levels, but SpaceX took a take-it-or-leave-it approach after a slew of testing-the-waters meetings leading up to the roadshow launch.

Goldman Sachs is the lead banker for the offering, followed by Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase.

With the IPO, Musk is poised to be the world’s first trillionaire. His stake in SpaceX is worth $866.5 billion, adding to his Tesla holdings that are valued at about $320 billion, not including some options. For the 54-year-old Musk, the SpaceX offering comes 16 years after he took Tesla public.

Musk controls over 82% of voting power at SpaceX, giving him virtually complete control over the board.

Two Wall Street firms initiated coverage of SpaceX on Thursday. Oppenheimer opened with an outperform rating and a 12- to 18-month price target of $190, implying a gain of 40% from the IPO price. Analyst Timothy Horan wrote that the company’s diversified portfolio makes it attractive for investors. 

“We see potential for SPCX to leverage terrestrial compute expertise as a bridge (and possible back-up plan) to enable key scale and cost advantages,” he wrote. Horan called it the “only vertically-integrated AI company with the required capital, data, LLMs, hardware, manufacturing and engineering talent,” and said “its space infrastructure appears structurally advantaged.”

Meanwhile, New Street Research initiated coverage with a $165 price target, and said it views xAI as a $575 billion business, “relative to expectations for OpenAI and Anthropic.”

While SpaceX’s IPO is roughly three times the size of the largest U.S. IPO in history, it could be challenged by what’s to come. Anthropic and OpenAI, which are each valued at close to $1 trillion by private investors, have confidentially filed to go public less than four years into the generative AI boom. Those deals could happen this year.

WATCH: SpaceX IPO is emblematic of space economy future

BlackRock has moved its proposed Bitcoin income-focused exchange-traded fund closer to market debut after filing a key registration document with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to a Form 8-A submitted to the SEC on June 11, BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Premium Income ETF has been registered for listing on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The filing covers the registration of the trust’s shares under Section 12(b) of the Securities Exchange Act and follows a series of recent amendments tied to the product.

Soon after the filing became public, Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas said on X that BlackRock had filed an 8-A for the Bitcoin Premium Income ETF under the ticker BITA. 

“That typically means launch in one week. So if I had to bet I’d say next Thur $BITA goes live. We’ll see tho.”

The latest registration arrived only days after BlackRock updated the fund’s S-1 filing with the SEC. In that amended prospectus, the asset manager confirmed plans to list the product on Nasdaq under the symbol BITA.

Unlike spot Bitcoin ETFs that primarily track the price of Bitcoin, the proposed fund is designed to combine Bitcoin-linked exposure with income generation.

According to the prospectus, the trust intends to sell call options to collect option premiums while maintaining exposure through holdings tied to BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and related spot Bitcoin benchmarks.

Fund structure centers on options income

Details contained in the amended registration statement show that the sponsor fee has been set at 0.65%. According to the filing, the fee will be paid from proceeds generated through the sale of IBIT shares, while certain fee waivers may apply under specific circumstances.

Fund disclosures also provide an early look at the trust’s holdings and capital structure. As of the most recent filing, net assets stood at approximately $9.99 million, representing about $49.97 per share.

According to the registration documents, BlackRock Financial Management provided roughly $9.9 million in seed capital through the purchase of 198,000 shares at $50 each.

Additional disclosures identified Jane Street Capital and Virtu Financial Singapore as Bitcoin trading counterparties for the trust. The filing further stated that, following the capital raise, the fund acquired 109.9630217 BTC and 90,901 shares of IBIT while writing 856 option contracts as part of its initial strategy.

Competition in the Bitcoin income ETF segment has also started to build. As previously reported by crypto.news, Goldman Sachs filed for its own Bitcoin Premium Income ETF in April, setting up a potential rivalry between two of the largest names in asset management.

BlackRock expands thematic ETF lineup

The Bitcoin income product is the latest addition to BlackRock’s growing ETF roster. Earlier this week, the firm launched the iShares Space Technologies UCITS ETF for investors in the United Kingdom and Europe.

BlackRock said the fund trades under the ticker STAR and tracks the STOXX Global Space Satellites and Drones Index. According to the company, eligible firms must generate at least 25% of their revenue from space, satellite, or drone-related activities.

A notable feature of the STAR ETF is a fast-entry rule that allows qualifying newly listed companies to join the index within 10 to 30 days of their market debut.

BlackRock said the mechanism was designed to capture developments in rapidly evolving industries, including growing investor attention around potential space-sector listings such as SpaceX.

Hungary is poised to decriminalize crypto trading, reversing restrictions that could have exposed traders to criminal penalties for certain crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto conversions, according to government spokesperson Anita Köböl.

Speaking at a Thursday press conference, Köböl noted that rules introduced last year requiring approved validation for crypto conversions and attaching criminal penalties to violations had diminished market activity.

“This was an unnecessary piece of legislation. It made practical operation impossible and frightened the market participants,”

Köböl said, according to a translation by Cointelegraph.

“The criminal consequences also negatively impacted several hundred thousand people.”

The rules also prompted several digital asset platforms, including Revolut, to suspend crypto services in Hungary, Köböl added. Regulation had also prompted a European Union probe into whether Hungary’s restrictions were compatible with bloc rules.

The reversal would mark a policy shift for Hungary after its 2025 crypto framework created a restrictive approval system around crypto, exposing users and service providers to criminal liability.

Hungary’s 2025 crypto rules threatened traders with prison time

The restrictions stemmed from a legislative package passed in 2025 that amended Hungary’s Criminal Code and its Act VII of 2024 on the crypto market, known as the Crypto Act. Under the amendments that took effect on July 1, 2025, exchanging crypto may be carried out only with a compliance certificate issued by an authorized crypto asset conversion validation service provider.

Transactions lacking that certificate were treated as “unauthorized crypto-transactions,” with linked asset transfers deemed invalid and unable to produce legal effect.

The framework also created a new type of entity, a crypto conversion validation service provider, which required authorization from Hungary’s Supervisory Authority of Regulated Activities. These providers were tasked with checking the origin of crypto assets, identifying wallet or device ownership, assessing user profiles and verifying transactions against external databases before issuing compliance certificates.

Individuals or entities exchanging crypto worth between 5 million Hungarian forint and 50 million forint (about $16,000 to $160,000) through an unauthorized exchange service could face up to two years in prison. Penalties increased to five years for transactions between 50 million forint and 500 million forint, and up to eight years for transactions above 500 million forint.

The crypto reversal comes after Hungary’s April 12 parliamentary election, which ended the 16-year rule of nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban and brought Peter Magyar’s pro-European Tisza Party into government, with the new administration moving to ease tensions after years of conflict between Hungary and the EU.

With additional reporting from Zoltan Vardai.