Crypto Derivatives Report H1 2021: Open Interest, Funding, Liquidations

Key numbers: H1 2021

perpetual futures · UTC

Open interest at the end

$317.9M

+224% like-for-like

BTC average funding

47.2% APR

negative on 13 of 181 days

1. Open interest

daily average per exchange, USD

Open interest on Bybit went from $98.1M on 1 Jan 2021 to $317.9M on 30 Jun 2021 (+224%), peaking at $535.8M on 20 May 2021. Bitcoin ended the period with 61% of it ($194.7M, +127%).

Covers Bybit for the whole period. The chart and the changes use only the exchanges recorded on both 1 Jan 2021 and 30 Jun 2021 (Bybit). Before this site recorded them live, the numbers for Bybit come from the exchanges' own hourly history. Coverage

Coin	1 Jan 2021	30 Jun 2021	Change	Peak	Peak day
BTC	$85.8M	$194.7M	+126.86%	$352.6M	20 May 2021
ETH	—	$53.0M	—	$102.0M	14 May 2021
ADA	—	$18.7M	—	$70.1M	16 May 2021
XRP	—	$10.5M	—	$12.1M	16 Jun 2021
LTC	$7.0M	$8.6M	+23.04%	$35.2M	17 Apr 2021
DOT	—	$8.6M	—	$18.5M	15 May 2021
BCH	$1.6M	$8.0M	+387.06%	$25.7M	10 May 2021
DOGE	—	$6.8M	—	$9.0M	17 Jun 2021
LINK	$3.7M	$6.3M	+72.50%	$21.4M	10 May 2021
ETC	—	$967K	—	$967K	30 Jun 2021
All coins	$98.1M	$317.9M	+223.98%	$535.8M	20 May 2021

Exchange share of open interest

Exchange	1 Jan 2021	Share	30 Jun 2021	Share	Change
Bybit	$98.1M	100.0%	$317.9M	100.0%	+223.98%

Download: coins (CSV) · exchanges (CSV)

2. Funding

mean of each day's OI-weighted 8h rate

Funding averaged BTC 0.0431% per 8h (about 47.2% APR) and ETH 0.0541% per 8h (about 59.2% APR) over the first half of 2021. BTC funding was negative on 13 of 181 days. The most positive liquid coin was XRP at 76.9% APR.

Covers Binance for the whole period. Before this site recorded them live, the rates for Binance are the settled funding from the exchanges' own history. Coverage

Coin	Average per 8h	Annualized	Negative days	Days
BTC	0.0431%	47.2%	13	181
ETH	0.0541%	59.2%	7	181
ADA	0.0539%	59.0%	14	181
XRP	0.0702%	76.9%	5	181
LTC	0.0593%	64.9%	8	181
DOT	0.0641%	70.1%	7	181
BCH	0.0467%	51.1%	6	181
DOGE	0.0478%	52.3%	31	181
LINK	0.0623%	68.2%	1	181
ETC	0.0354%	38.8%	43	181

Most positive (average OI ≥ $5M)
Coin	Annualized	Days
XRP	76.9%	181
DOT	70.1%	181
LINK	68.2%	181
LTC	64.9%	181
ETH	59.2%	181

Most negative (average OI ≥ $5M)
Coin	Annualized	Days
None

Download: funding (CSV)

3. Liquidations

UTC days · longs / shorts

No liquidations are recorded for the first half of 2021. This site stores liquidations from 27 Sep 2026.

4. Volume

quote volume, USD · perp and spot

No trading volume is stored for the first half of 2021.

5. Hyperliquid

vs the centralized exchanges · HIP-3

Hyperliquid is not recorded for the first half of 2021.

Cite this report

permalink

swolecharts, “Crypto Derivatives Report: H1 2021”, published 1 July 2021, https://swolecharts.com/reports/2021-h1

Free to quote and embed with a link back to /reports/2021-h1.

Methodology

Days are UTC. Open interest is each perpetual market's average for the day, summed per coin and exchange; HIP-3 markets are left out of the crypto totals.
Funding is each day's open-interest-weighted average of the 8-hour-equivalent rate across exchanges, averaged over the days with data; annualized = rate × 3 × 365.
Live data is what this site recorded from each exchange's public API. Before that, Binance and Bybit open interest come from the exchanges' published hourly history and Binance and Hyperliquid funding from their settled rates; the live record wins wherever both exist.
Liquidations come from the exchanges' public liquidation feeds; some feeds are sampled, so totals are a lower bound. Volume is the quote volume of this site's recorded 1-minute bars.
No third-party aggregator data is used. See coverage for every exchange and data type.

Derivatives report FAQ

What does the derivatives report cover?

Perpetual futures open interest, funding, liquidations and trading volume over one half-year or year, by coin and by exchange, with a section on Hyperliquid. Every number comes from the exchanges' public market-data APIs, recorded by this site or backfilled from the exchanges' own history.

When is a report published?

At 00:00 UTC on the day after the period ends: 1 July for the first half, 1 January for the second half and the full year. Late data can still arrive during the first day, after which the report does not change.

Why do some sections cover fewer exchanges?

Coverage grows over time. Older periods rely on the hourly history Binance and Bybit publish (open interest) and on settled funding from Binance and Hyperliquid; every exchange on the coverage page is included from the day this site started recording it. Each section lists the exchanges it covers, and the open-interest change compares only exchanges recorded at both ends of the period.

Can I cite or share the report?

Yes. Each report has a permanent page, a 1200×630 image at the same address plus .png and a CSV of every table. Please link back to the page when you use the numbers or the image.

Crypto derivatives report: H1 2021