Research · Network Economics
Bitcoin Flows and Positioning Monitor
Who is buying, how crowded is the market, and how much leverage is present? This page tracks stablecoin supply, derivatives positioning, options, macro conditions, sentiment and holdings-derived ETF flows. It describes the current market regime and tests whether these readings have historically added information about future returns.
Current readings
Computed from the daily public snapshot for 14 October 2026, published 2026-10-15 11:22 UTC. The charts and tables below are drawn in the browser from the same file; these figures are the ones they show.
| Funding, annualised | 5.2% | 76th percentile |
|---|---|---|
| Open interest | $3.32bn | 0.2% of market cap |
| DVOL | 39.1 | 20th percentile |
| Stablecoin supply | $306.10bn | 0.8% over 30 days |
Crowding and sentiment, combined
A combined measure of funding, open interest relative to market cap, and Fear & Greed, each ranked against its own history. Higher readings indicate a more crowded and levered market; lower readings a less crowded one. These components overlap, so this is one descriptive crowding gauge, not three independent signals.
Stablecoin supply and price
Funding and open interest
Implied volatility
Macro backdrop
Current readings
| Indicator | Latest | Percentile | 30-day change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stablecoin supply | $306.1B | 93rd | +0.9% |
| Funding, annualised | +5.3% | 76th | +4.73 |
| Open interest (OKX) | $3.3B | 80th | +15.5% |
| Open interest / market cap | 0.20% | 24th | +0.01 |
| Implied volatility, DVOL | 39.1% | 20th | +0.55 |
| CME open interest, contracts | 21,432 | 55th | +1.7% |
| Fear and Greed | 62 | 67th | +5.00 |
| Broad dollar index | 121.6 | 70th | +2.5% |
| 10y real yield | 2.88% | 99th | +0.28 |
| Fed funds effective | 3.88% | 48th | +0.25 |
Historical relationship with future returns
| Indicator | Rank correlation | Days | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stablecoin supply | -0.16 | 2,023 | weak |
| Funding, annualised | 0.02 | 284 | no lead |
| Open interest / market cap | – | 103 | insufficient data |
| Implied volatility | 0.05 | 923 | no lead |
| Fear and Greed | 0.05 | 2,023 | no lead |
| Broad dollar index | -0.13 | 2,023 | weak |
| 10y real yield | -0.13 | 2,023 | weak |
Overlapping windows; treat as indicative. A relationship in the past describes historical co-movement; it is not evidence of a tradable signal.
Forward returns by funding regime
| Annualised funding | 90d | 180d | 365d | Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| below 0% (shorts pay) | -10% | -6% | – | 88 |
| 0% to 5% | -15% | -25% | -28% | 216 |
| 5% to 15% | -20% | -32% | -31% | 92 |
| 15% to 30% | -19% | -39% | -28% | 6 |
| above 30% | -26% | -45% | -29% | 2 |
Spot ETF flows estimated from reported holdings
- Issuers measuredIBIT 805,025 · ARKB 32,024 · BITB 37,318 · HODL 14,667 · OBTC 735
- Coins covered889,769 BTC (4.43% of supply)
- Not coveredGBTC, BTC, FBTC, BTCO, EZBC, BRRR, BTCW, MSBT
- Latest net flowOct 14, 2026: $0.0000
- Days of flow history32
Quarterly reconciliation layer: coin counts from each trust's own 10-Q / 10-K
Primary, keyless, and up to 45 days stale by construction; never merged into the daily series above. 7 of 13 trusts read, 1,167,518 BTC at their latest quarter ends (ends differ by trust, so this is not one date). Where a trust also has a daily series, the quarter-end figure is compared with the daily file on that date.
| Trust | Coins, latest quarter end | Period, filing | Against the daily file |
|---|---|---|---|
| IBIT | 734,261 BTC | 2026-06-30 (10-Q, filed 2026-08-06) | no daily series to compare |
| FBTC | 201,684 BTC | 2025-12-31 (10-K, filed 2026-02-25) | no daily series to compare |
| GBTC | 138,506 BTC | 2026-06-30 (10-Q, filed 2026-08-04) | no daily series to compare |
| BTC | 54,280 BTC | 2026-06-30 (10-Q, filed 2026-08-04) | no daily series to compare |
| ARKB | 32,178 BTC | 2026-06-30 (10-Q, filed 2026-08-06) | no daily series to compare |
| BITB | no XBRL concept recognised as a bitcoin quantity — 14 non-dollar concepts tagged, none a coin count (full inventory in etf_quarterly.json) | ||
| HODL | no XBRL concept recognised as a bitcoin quantity — 22 non-dollar concepts tagged, none a coin count (full inventory in etf_quarterly.json) | ||
| BTCO | no XBRL concept recognised as a bitcoin quantity — 8 non-dollar concepts tagged, none a coin count (full inventory in etf_quarterly.json) | ||
| EZBC | 5,664 BTC | 2026-06-30 (10-Q, filed 2026-08-14) | no daily series to compare |
| BRRR | no XBRL concept recognised as a bitcoin quantity — 13 non-dollar concepts tagged, none a coin count (full inventory in etf_quarterly.json) | ||
| BTCW | no XBRL concept recognised as a bitcoin quantity — 5 non-dollar concepts tagged, none a coin count (full inventory in etf_quarterly.json) | ||
| MSBT | no XBRL concept recognised as a bitcoin quantity — 12 non-dollar concepts tagged, none a coin count (full inventory in etf_quarterly.json) | ||
| OBTC | 945 BTC | 2026-06-30 (10-Q, filed 2026-08-11) | no daily series to compare |
Net flow = change in coins held × that day's price, from each issuer's own disclosure. This is not total spot-ETF flow.Why 8 issuers are not covered
Options: skew, volatility and term structure
- At-the-money implied volatility, 30 days37.1 vol pts (DVOL index 39.1)
- 25-delta risk reversal+2.77 pts — downside protection bid
- 25-delta butterfly+1.51 pts
- ATM implied volatility by tenor7d 33.0 · 30d 37.1 · 90d 38.0 · 180d 38.8 vol pts
- Term slope, 180d minus 30d+1.6 pts — upward-sloping, the normal state of a calm surface
- As ofOct 15, 2026
Crisis readings historically run to five or ten points, so a small number here says the option market is not paying up for downside.How these are computed
Deltas are computed Black-Scholes with a zero rate on the underlying quoted with each instrument, then the 25-delta wings are interpolated across listed strikes. The term structure takes the 50-delta level on every listed expiry the same way and interpolates in days to expiry; a tenor outside the listed range is left blank. Percentile ranks for the tenor levels and the slope unlock as daily history accrues, like the other second-tier series. The reading is omitted rather than extrapolated when a chain does not bracket both wings.
CME positioning: leveraged funds
- Net position-6,852 contracts net short
- Long / short5,731 / 12,583 contracts
- Week-on-week change+4 contracts
- Short leg vs open interest58.7% of 21,432 contracts
- Report dateOct 6, 2026
Column positions are checked against the report's own identities before any figure is published, so a change in the file layout suppresses the reading rather than shifting it silently.Reading a net short
A persistent net short among leveraged funds on CME is commonly the short leg of a cash-and-carry basis trade against spot or ETF longs, not a directional bet. Treat the level as positioning information, not as a forecast.
Fear and Greed
Data audit
| Series | First | Last | Days | Min | Max | Latest |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price, USD | 2010-08-18 | 2026-10-14 | 5,902 | $0.0600 | $124,777 | $83,094 |
| Stablecoin supply, USD | 2017-11-29 | 2026-10-14 | 3,242 | $110,105 | $315.5B | $306.1B |
| Funding 8h, daily mean | 2025-09-06 | 2026-10-14 | 404 | -0.0109% | 0.0299% | 0.0048% |
| Open interest, USD | 2026-03-06 | 2026-10-14 | 223 | $2.5B | $3.8B | $3.3B |
| DVOL | 2023-12-07 | 2026-10-14 | 1,043 | 33.6 | 83.0 | 39.1 |
| CME open interest | 2026-08-25 | 2026-10-14 | 51 | 19,596 | 22,315 | 21,432 |
| Fear and Greed | 2018-02-01 | 2026-10-14 | 3,178 | 5 | 95 | 62 |
| Broad dollar index | 2010-08-18 | 2026-10-14 | 5,902 | 85.47 | 130.04 | 121.60 |
| 10y real yield | 2010-08-18 | 2026-10-14 | 5,902 | -1.19 | 2.95 | 2.88 |
- blockchainmissing from snapshot
- stablecoinsfetched 2026-10-15 11:22 UTC
- derivativesfetched 2026-10-15 11:22 UTC
- fear_greedfetched 2026-10-15 11:22 UTC
- fredfetched 2026-10-15 11:22 UTC
Method
Every series is read from primary public sources through the daily snapshot: stablecoin supply from DefiLlama, funding and implied volatility from Deribit, open interest from OKX, CME open interest from the CFTC commitments report, the dollar index and yields from FRED, sentiment from Alternative.me. Funding is annualised as the 8-hour rate times 1095. Open interest is shown in dollars and, for the composite, as a share of market cap so that it is comparable across cycles.
The composite ribbon is the mean of three percentiles computed over the statistics window: annualised funding, open interest to market cap, and Fear and Greed. It is computed only on days when all three are present; a day with fewer is left blank rather than averaged over the remainder, so the composition never changes silently. It is a positioning gauge, not a valuation: it says how crowded the market is, not what Bitcoin is worth. Valuation is the job of the Metcalfe, power law and realised value monitors.
The correlation table tests whether these readings have historically preceded different outcomes. Each indicator's 30-day change is rank-correlated with the following 90-day return over the window. Most flow and positioning indicators are coincident with price rather than leading it, and the table will usually say so; that is useful to know before treating any of them as a signal.
What this page tells you, and what it does not
Descriptive: these are the measured flows and positions from primary sources, with percentiles and history. It does not claim: that any of them forecasts price. Where the correlation table shows information at 90 days, it is weak and in-sample. Funding and open interest change within hours; the snapshot is daily, so this page describes the regime, not the tape.
Sources
DefiLlama stablecoin API; Deribit public API (BTC-PERPETUAL funding, DVOL); OKX public API (open interest); CFTC Commitments of Traders (CME bitcoin futures); FRED (DTWEXBGS, DFII10, DFF, DGS10, M2SL); Alternative.me Fear and Greed; Blockchain.com for price history; Coinbase spot. All free, keyless, refreshed daily at 06:15 UTC through the Crypto Exponentials data snapshot; the audit panel shows the fetch time.
Nothing here is investment advice. Positioning can stay crowded for months; percentiles describe where a reading sits, not when it reverses.