Record $39.4B Bitcoin open interest suggests imminent price breakout

Bitcoin futures’ open interest has reached a new all-time high, suggesting that investor demand for the world’s largest cryptocurrency is increasing. Could a price breakout be imminent?

Bitcoin open interest, a metric monitoring the total number of open positions in the underlying asset, has reached an all-time high of $39.46 billion across all exchanges.

The current figure surpasses the previous all-time high of $39.03 billion reached on March 29, 2024, according to CoinGlass data.

BTC Futures open interest, all-time chart. Source: CoinGlass

Bitcoin’s open interest is used by traders to gauge the interest and liquidity behind the asset. The current $39.46 billion peak shows increased investor interest in Bitcoin, which may precede a breakout toward new record highs.

Bitcoin breakout could be imminent, based on short-term holders and BTC dominance

The new record high in open interest, paired with other indicators, suggests that the Bitcoin price could be on track to break out to new all-time highs.

Notably, over 75% of Bitcoin’s short-term holders were in profit as of July 24. This could translate into more upward momentum for BTC since the short–term cohort is often used to gauge retail demand for Bitcoin.

Bitcoin: Short-term holder market value to realized value. Source: Glassnode

Moreover, Bitcoin’s growing dominance suggests that it will devour increasingly more of the total crypto market capitalization, according to Benjamin Cowen, the CEO and Founder of Into The CryptoVerse.

Cowen wrote in a July 29 X post:

“Bitcoin dominance just had its highest weekly close all cycle. We should see BTC continue to reclaim more market share over the next few months.”

Bitcoin dominance chart. Source: Benjamin Cowen

Can Bitcoin price breach $71,500 next?

Bitcoin’s next major target is the $71,500 mark before having the potential to rally to new all-time highs, according to popular crypto analyst Rekt Capital.

The analyst wrote in a July 27 X post to his 484,000 followers:

“The clustering continues between $65,000 and ~$71,500. As a result, there is scope for Bitcoin revisiting the Range High at ~$71500 at some point in the future.”

BTC/USD, 1-day chart. Source: Rekt Capital

Bitcoin price is currently 5.8% down from its all-time high of over $73,750, recorded on March 14. Its price action will largely depend on the inflows into the US-based spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

The US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $795 million worth of cumulative net inflows during the previous week, marking the fourth consecutive week of net positive inflows, according to Dune data.

Bitcoin ETF net flows, weekly, in US dollars. Source: Dune