Crypto market brief · 2026-10-16

Altseason index climbs to 82

Forty of the 49 altcoins we track have beaten Bitcoin over the past 90 days, and that is with $BTC itself up 26.2% across the same stretch.

The Altcoin Season Index reads 82 on Oct 16, above the 75 line where altseason starts and 6 points higher than seven days earlier.

BTW leads the sample with a 30x return, followed by QNT at +219.7%. At the other end, US is down -84.8% and Stellar is at -3.2%, while $DOGE at +11.7% trails Bitcoin's gain.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-1800-altseason-daily, data as of 2026-10-16 15:12 UTC

Turkey's Bitcoin discount runs a sixth day

The discount Turkish buyers got on Bitcoin on Oct 16 was a dollar story. Tether traded at -33.2 bps against the official USD/TRY rate, and the coin itself added only -0.1 bps on top.

That put the Turkey Premium Index at -0.33% (-33.4 bps), a score of 38 / 100 in the discount regime, the sixth day in a row below the global price. The 24 hour average was -13.1 bps and the 7 day average -3.5 bps, so this reading sits deeper than both.

Across five eligible exchanges, Bitlo was the dearest at -20.8 bps and Binance TR the cheapest at -34.5 bps. This is a price gap for lira buyers, not a trade anyone can lock in.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-1520-turkey-daily, data as of 2026-10-16 15:19 UTC

Insurance fund reading tops the factor board

Exchange insurance funds on our gate metric hold $257M, a very high reading against their own history, and that reading carries the largest edge on this week's factor board.

In past weeks with a reading this high, the median move over the following seven days was -2.08%, which is 2.7 percentage points below a typical week, across 33 past readings. Of 153 tracked metrics, 67 have enough history to score.

At the other end, a very low reading on our meme coin index came with a median of 1.25%, 1.6 points above a typical week.

These figures describe what followed similar conditions in the past. They are not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-0940-factors-weekly, data as of 2026-10-16 00:50 UTC

Bitcoin order flow runs one sided

Bitcoin's order flow ran unusually one sided on Oct 16. Order flow toxicity, a gauge of how lopsided buying and selling is, read 0.17, in the 91st percentile of the past 90 days and above the threshold our desk flags.

$BTC traded at $82,208, up 1.06% over 24 hours, with Bitcoin holding 59.23% of a $2.8T market. Fear and Greed read 63, in greed. Coinbase traders bid below the global price for a 41st straight day, a gap of -0.14%.

Leverage built fastest in $ADA, where open futures bets grew 9.8% as price rose 4.2%. Across 10 tracked majors, 3 added leverage and 2 squeezed out.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-0901-daily-brief, data as of 2026-10-16 09:01 UTC

Block buyers took $86,000 Bitcoin calls

The three largest Bitcoin options trades of the past 48 hours all landed on one expiry, Dec 25, 2026. A block buyer paid $4.5M in premium for $86,000 calls, which gain if price ends above that strike. The second largest trade sold $90,000 calls on the same date for $3.8M, and a further $3.6M buy of $86,000 calls came third.

Over the last 24 hours the money behind each side was close to even. Buyers paid $5.8M for calls and $5.6M for puts, which pay if price falls.

Block trades, negotiated off the order book, carried 52% of all premium across 19,623 recorded trades.

Since 2021, days in this very low band saw a median -0.1% BTC move over the next 7d (n=400, base +0.2%, 5y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-0810-options-flow-daily, data as of 2026-10-16 08:10 UTC

US buyers extend their discount to 41 days

American buyers closed Oct 15 still paying less for $BTC than traders on global exchanges, the 41st day in a row on the discount side. The Coinbase premium, the gap between the US price and the global one, finished the day at -0.139%.

That gap was wider than the week's norm, with the 7 day average at -0.116%.

Futures buyers were still paying up. Quarterly Bitcoin futures traded above spot at an annualized carry of +5.42%, the yearly rate implied by that gap.

Since 2017, days in this very low band saw a median +0.1% BTC move over the next 7d (n=663, base +0.5%, 9y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-0720-premium-daily, data as of 2026-10-16 07:20 UTC

Miners grew hashrate +11.7% in a week

Computing power on the Bitcoin network grew +11.7% in the 7 days to Oct 15, well ahead of its +2.3% change over 30 days. Our node put the hashrate, the total computing power securing the network, at 1026 EH/s.

Mining difficulty, the setting that decides how hard each block is to find, stood at 132.72T.

Block space was inexpensive on Oct 15. Users paid 2.0 sat/vB in fees, and miner revenue for the day came to 505.6 BTC.

Since 2017, days in this very high band saw a median +0.1% BTC move over the next 7d (n=636, base +0.5%, 8y of records). History, not a forecast.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-0540-network-daily, data as of 2026-10-15 00:20 UTC

Celestia jumps 25.62% as sellers get forced out

Celestia's $TIA just gained 25.62% over 24 hours and trades at $0.6566.

The forced exits came almost entirely from one side. In the last 60 minutes our streams recorded $361.6K of leveraged short positions closed out, and only $1.9K of longs. These are the closures we caught, a floor for the whole market.

Funding stands at -0.01% per interval, meaning traders betting on a fall are the ones paying to keep their positions open as the price runs against them.

Source: ByKaranteli, https://bykaranteli.com/brief/2026-10-16#2026-10-16-0651-event-price-shock, data as of 2026-10-16 06:51 UTC

A $12.0M long was forced out on Binance

Bitcoin gained ground over the 24 hours to Oct 16, yet the largest forced closure of the window hit a buyer on leverage: a long liquidation of $12.0M on Binance. That figure is the size of the position the exchange closed, not a measure of the trader's loss.

$BTC ended the window +0.77% at $82,274. Our collectors logged 4,767 recorded prints of $1K or more across the day, each one a leveraged position closed out after its margin ran out.

The heatmap behind the candles is an estimate of where leveraged positions sit. The prints on the candles are recorded closures.

Bybit closes USDC withdrawals on XDC

USDC can no longer leave Bybit over the XDC network. Our daily read of the exchange's own currency list shows withdrawals on that route marked closed.

The people exposed are $USDC holders on Bybit who planned to send funds out over XDC. Deposits and other networks may still be open, so a different chain could still be a way out for them.

A closed withdrawal route is the earliest public sign a venue gives when something is wrong. Most of these pauses turn out to be routine maintenance.

Injective's 22.16% jump forces out shorts

Injective just ran 22.16% higher over 24 hours and trades at $9.10.

The pain sat with sellers. In the last 60 minutes our streams recorded $193.2K of leveraged short positions closed out, against $81.2K on the long side. Those are the closures we caught, a floor for the whole market.

Funding, the fee one side of the futures market pays the other, stands at 0.01% per interval, so longs are paying only a small amount to keep their bets open after the jump.

Leveraged longs took 79% of stock perp losses

Leveraged buyers carried most of the pain on Binance's TradFi perpetuals on Oct 15. Longs made up 79% of the $79.26M force closed, spread across 219 contracts and 19,272 separate closures.

Bets on a rise lost $62.8M, against $16.4M for bets on a fall. SNDK took the biggest hit at $12.70M, $8.90M of it from longs, followed by SOXL at $7.56M and SKHYNIX at $6.11M. The largest single forced closure was a $982K position in BZ.

The day's total came in 22% below Oct 14, when $101.05M was closed.

BingX halts ADA withdrawals on BEP20

BingX has stopped ADA withdrawals on the BEP20 network. The route shows as closed in the venue's own currency list, which we check every day.

Anyone holding $ADA on BingX who planned to move it out as a BEP20 token is the one affected. Deposits and other networks may still be working.

A withdrawal pause is the earliest public signal an exchange gives when something is off, but most of them turn out to be routine maintenance. The route stays closed until BingX lists it as open again.

Bitget closes USDT withdrawals on TRC20

Tether can't currently leave Bitget over the TRC20 network. Our daily read of the exchange's own currency list shows USDT withdrawals on that route marked closed.

The people exposed are $USDT holders on Bitget who planned to send funds out as TRC20 tokens. Deposits and other networks may still be open.

A closed withdrawal route is the earliest public sign a venue gives when something is wrong, though most pauses turn out to be routine maintenance.

Binance charges the most to borrow dollars

Borrowing dollars on margin cost the most on Binance in the 05:25 UTC read on Oct 16, at 4.86% a year for USDT. OKX was the cheapest of the three venues at 3.5%, and Bybit sat in the middle at 3.92%, which is also the median.

Cardano showed the widest spread across 15 assets. Traders holding long $ADA perpetuals on OKX were paying shorts 10.95% a year in funding, the fee that keeps perpetual prices tied to spot. Borrowing ADA on the same venue cost 1% a year.

On OKX, that put 9.95% a year between what ADA longs paid and what borrowing the coin cost in this morning's snapshot.

Bitget reopens USDT withdrawals on TRC20

The TRC20 route out of Bitget is open again for USDT. The exchange's own currency list now marks withdrawals on that network as active, about 1 hour after the pause began.

Those who felt the pause were $USDT holders on Bitget planning to send funds out as TRC20 tokens. For that hour, Tether on that route could not leave the venue.

This covers USDT on TRC20 only. The status of other networks and other assets on Bitget is not part of this read.

$3.55B of Bitcoin options reach expiry

$3.55B of Bitcoin options, 42.9k BTC of open contracts, expire at 08:00 UTC on Oct 16. At 07:00 UTC $BTC traded at $82,635, +0.16% from $82,500, the strike where option holders as a group would lose the most at settlement. There were 0.90 puts open for every call.

Ether's expiry carries $1.18B. $ETH traded at $2,454, +0.57% from its own $2,440 strike of maximum holder loss, with 0.64 puts open for every call.

Options pricing implied a one standard deviation move of ±0.25% for Bitcoin and ±0.32% for Ether into the settlement.

PTN wrapper on Solana trades at a discount

The PTN wrapper on Solana trades at a -6.81% premium to the PTN it tracks, which means the wrapped token is the cheaper of the two. Buyers on Solana pay less than the underlying price, and sellers there receive less.

The premium compares the wrapper's market price with the price of its underlying asset. A negative reading means the token trades at a discount, and a positive one means it trades above.

The gap shows a price difference between two markets. It does not say which way PTN itself is moving, and a discount on its own is not proof of a redemption problem.

Cosmos shorts pay the highest fee to stay

Cosmos holds the most negative funding on our board this morning at -0.02%. Funding is the fee between longs and shorts, so on $ATOM the traders betting on a fall are the ones paying. Open futures bets on Cosmos grew 1.72% over 24 hours.

Celestia shows the largest build on the short paying side. $TIA funding sits at -0.01% and open bets jumped 13.07% in 24 hours. Arbitrum is also at -0.01%, with open bets down 1.3%.

On the other side, no coin sits above 0.01%. TRX, DOT, SUI and Filecoin all read 0.01%, and $FIL added 10.42% in open bets over the same 24 hours.

Since 2019, days in this very low band saw a median +1.2% BTC move over the next 7d (n=514, base +0.4%, 7y of records). History, not a forecast.

Exchange insurance funds add $43.5M in a day

Exchange insurance funds gained +$43.5M, or +0.57%, in the 24 hours to Oct 16, taking the 10 venues we cover to $7.66B. These are the reserves that pay when a liquidated trader's losses run past the margin they posted. Over seven days the total reads -0.05%.

Bybit's fund moved most, +0.95% to $1.16B. OKX, the largest at $3.02B, added +0.92%. Binance holds $2.44B after +0.16%, and MEXC was the only big fund in the red at -0.07%.

Together the funds equal 16.24% of the open perpetual positions on the coins we track. Each figure is a balance the venue reports, not an audit.

HTX settled its Oct 16 Bitcoin futures

HTX settled its Oct 16 coin margined $BTC futures at $82,101.04 at 08:00 UTC, one of 14 dated futures settlements our collectors recorded in the 24 hours to 09:15 UTC. Its $ETH contract settled at $2,451.556 in the same window.

On Deribit, an AVAX contract settled at $10.153 at the same hour, and HTX also closed out a TRX contract.

The calendar stays full. 132 dated futures expire over the next 7 days across 11 venues, alongside 7,999 option contracts. Oct 17 is busiest on Deribit, with 13 BTC and 13 ETH delivery contracts plus single AVAX, HYPE and SOL contracts, while Bullish has one BTC contract ending that day.

Sellers take the heavier side of the book

Sellers held the heavier side of the $BTC spot book at 09:39 UTC on Oct 16. Within 2% of the $81.6K mid, $177.9M of asks rested against $160.5M of bids across 21 venues, a -5.2% imbalance against buyers.

The balance moved over the 24 hours before that reading. Ask depth in that range grew 33.2% and bid depth shrank 18.7%, as the mid rose 0.5% from $81.2K.

The two largest walls sat right next to the price. $38.1M of bids rested at $81.6K, 0.05% below mid, and $38.7M of asks at $81.7K, 0.05% above. Resting orders can be pulled at any moment, so the book is a snapshot of where size sat, not a map of what comes next.

Whale buyers and sellers split almost evenly

Neither buyers nor sellers ran the large order flow over the 24 hours to 10:00 UTC on Oct 16. Across 9,834 big trades, buyers moved $8.78B and sellers $8.83B, which leaves buyers with 49.9%. That sits inside the 45% to 55% range we count as two sided.

$BTC drew the most whale money at $10.68B across 5,789 trades, ahead of $ETH at $6.06B across 3,470. The single largest order of the window was also in Bitcoin, at $27.0M.

Both Bitcoin longs and shorts sit near exits

Neither side of the $BTC market had much room on Oct 16. The estimated liquidation map at 11:00 UTC put modeled exposure within 3% of the $82,175 price roughly level above and below, so longs and shorts carried similar risk near the price.

Above the price, traders betting on a fall face their first modeled liquidations at $82,488, with the largest cluster at $83,544. Below it, leveraged buyers meet their nearest estimated levels at $81,241 and the biggest cluster at $79,322.

These are modeled levels built from open interest and leverage, not recorded liquidations.

Three exchanges list DNA on the same day

DNA was the one new contract that landed on several exchanges at once. Bybit, Gate.io and BingX all listed it as a perpetual, a futures contract with no expiry date, first seen at 08:52 UTC on Oct 16.

OKX added four in a single batch at 09:52 UTC: GS, JPM, MCD and V. Bybit listed DRV at the same minute. BingX added DOPE at 07:52 UTC and FTR at 03:52 UTC.

That makes 8 new perpetuals in the 24 hours to 12:30 UTC, all settled against USDT.

Gold tops open bets on tradfi contracts

Gold is the traditional asset where traders on the venues we track hold the most open bets. Contracts on XAU carry $580.64M in open interest, meaning the value of positions still open. SK Hynix follows at $486.71M and SPCX at $483.95M.

Across all 220 instruments tied to traditional assets, open positions total $5.05B, and $21.89B changed hands over the past 24 hours.

The figure measures how much money sits in open contracts on these listings. It doesn't split buyers from sellers, so it shows where the money is committed, not which way it leans.

Both majors trade above yesterday's value area

Ether is trading above the prices where it spent most of yesterday's session, and Bitcoin is too. At 12:44 UTC, ahead of the US open, $ETH was at $2,472.96 and $BTC at $82,241.40.

On Oct 15, Bitcoin perpetuals spent 70% of their trading time between $80,131.23 and $81,886.53, with the most traded price at $81,131.34. The session closed at $82,195.40, +1.31% from that most traded price.

Ether's zone ran from $2,322.76 to $2,420.80 around a most traded price of $2,364.52. It closed the day at $2,441.00, +3.23% from that level.

Ether shorts carry more of the nearby risk

Close to Ether's price, traders betting on a fall carry more of the estimated liquidation exposure. Within 3% of $ETH at $2,462 on Oct 16 at 13:00 UTC, the modeled map leans toward short positions above price.

The nearest estimated short levels sit at $2,493, and the largest short cluster is at $2,528. A rise to those prices would force those shorts to buy back.

On the other side, the first modeled long levels start at $2,443, and the largest long cluster sits further down at $2,360. All of these are estimates built from open interest and leverage, not recorded closures.

xStocks issued 80 new stock wrappers

xStocks did most of the issuing on Oct 16, putting out 80 of the 94 new tokenized stock wrappers recorded that day. Coinbase Tokenized Stocks added 13 and Robinhood Stock Tokens 1.

$BLK heads the list, issued by xStocks as BLKx on Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Ethereum, HyperEVM, Ink and Mantle.

Base took the most new wrappers with 13. Arbitrum, BNB Chain, Ethereum, HyperEVM, Ink, Mantle, Optimism, Solana, TON and X Layer got 8 each, and Robinhood Chain 1.

Every wrapper here comes from the issuers' own lists, not a name search.

Ether funds lose more than Bitcoin funds gain

Ether funds saw more money leave on Oct 15 than the Bitcoin funds brought in. US spot $ETH ETFs posted net redemptions of $60.2M for the day.

The $BTC funds took in a net $5.1M, a small positive day, with BlackRock's IBIT leading at $16.8M of new money.

One quiet inflow doesn't turn the week for Bitcoin. Across the last five sessions the funds came to -$125.1M net, with total net assets of $105.71B as of Oct 15.

Since 2025, days in this low band saw a median +0.5% BTC move over the next 7d (n=117, base -0.3%, 1y of records). History, not a forecast.

Chainlink's book charges the most to trade

Pushing $1.0M through Chainlink's order book at market cost an estimated 23.7 bps in slippage on Oct 16, the most of the eight books we track. The same order in Bitcoin came to 0.5 bps.

Behind $LINK sat Cardano at 19 bps, Dogecoin at 11.9 bps and BNB at 9.3 bps. The deep end held Bitcoin, then Ether at 0.9 bps, Solana at 2.8 bps and XRP at 4.9 bps.

Thin books matter when leverage gets unwound in either direction. Each forced order on these coins moves the price further per dollar than the same order on $BTC or $ETH.

Ether sellers stack the heavier side

Sellers had more Ether resting on spot books than buyers did at 13:59 UTC on Oct 16. Across 21 venues, $ETH had $97.6M of asks within 2% of the $2,457 price against $88.4M of bids. That gap works out to an imbalance of -4.9%.

The biggest single block was a $22.2M sell wall at $2,461, 0.15% above the price. The largest buy wall, at $2,454, held $17.1M.

Bitcoin was close to even. $BTC carried $147.4M of bids against $145.9M of asks, with walls of $32.7M at $81,896 and $33.4M at $81,978 on either side of $81,937. These are resting orders, not fills, and they can be pulled.

Open bets on AGT jump 146.54% in a day

Open futures bets on $AGT grew 146.54% in the 24 hours to the Oct 16 snapshot at 15:00 UTC, the largest build on our pressure board. It scored 74, the top reading of the day.

Every added contract has a buyer and a seller, so the growth shows positions were opened, not which side opened them. Funding at 0.02% shows longs were the side paying a small fee to keep their positions open.

Most of the board leaned the same way, which our gauge labels long pressure. $TIA added 32.44% in open bets and $INJ 28.25%, with funding at 0% and 0.01%. BTW was the exception, with open bets down 16.49%.

Bids deepen 14.6% in Ether's spot book

Buyers added depth to Ether's spot book over the 24 hours to 15:39 UTC on Oct 16. Resting bids within 2% of the price were 14.6% deeper than a day earlier, and offers on the other side were 4.1% thinner, with $ETH up 0.3% over the same window.

Across 21 spot venues that left $94.40M of bids against $85.71M of asks, a 4.8% tilt toward the bid side.

The two largest walls sat 0.15% from the $2,444.46 mid on each side: $19.24M of bids at $2,440.79 and $17.40M of asks at $2,448.12. Resting orders can be pulled at any moment, so this is a snapshot of the book on Oct 16, not a floor or a ceiling.

Dogwifhat funding splits widest across venues

Dogwifhat traders paid very different prices to stay long depending on the venue in the Oct 16 reading at 15:52 UTC. Funding, the fee longs pay shorts, was lowest on Delta and highest on HTX for $WIF, a gap of 0.11% per 8 hours.

On paper that gap works out to a modeled 113.12% a year after fees. That figure assumes today's gap holds unchanged all year. It is an estimate of the carry, not a return anyone has booked.

Three more coins made the board with smaller gaps. $LINK ran 0.07% apart between Kraken and XT, Avalanche 0.06%, and $DOGE 0.06% between DigiFinex and XT.

81 Binance perps sink into oversold territory

KGEN tops the oversold list on Binance perps on Oct 16. Its daily RSI reads 19.8, the lowest of the 400 crypto contracts we track. RSI is a 14 day gauge of how one sided recent moves have been, where 30 or under counts as oversold.

Next in line are EDGE at 21.1 after a -6.3% day and RVN at 21.2 after -2.2%. EPIC sits at 22.2 after the steepest drop of the group, -17.0%.

Across the board, 81 perps read oversold and 21 overbought, with the average at 43.5. ICNT is the most stretched upside reading at 85.1 after a +37.2% day.

Bitcoin accounts lean 1.62 long per short

Long bets outnumber short ones across the big venues for Bitcoin. As of 16:48 UTC on Oct 16, Binance counted 1.62 $BTC accounts long for every short, OKX showed 1.76, and Bybit had 62.3% of its accounts on the buy side.

The biggest Binance traders hold 1.76 long accounts per short by head count, but 1.52 by position size, so their money is less one sided than their numbers.

Over the 24 hours to that reading, aggressive buyers outpaced sellers by +916 BTC. In the last hour, the ratio of buying to selling stood at 0.73, meaning sellers carried more volume. Among 30 coins tracked, SIREN had the steepest tilt, at 2.85 accounts long per short.

USOon on Solana trades below its USO fund

On Solana, the USOon token changes hands at -5.23% against the USO fund it is built to track. Anyone buying the wrapped version pays less than the fund's own price, and anyone selling it on Solana gets less back.

The figure measures the gap between the token's market price on chain and the price of USO itself. A minus sign means the token is the cheaper of the two.

The gap tells you where the two prices stand apart. It does not show which way either one moves next.

Trader mood climbs 10 points into greed

A 10 point swing in a single day carried trader mood into the Greed zone. The Fear and Greed index, a gauge of how optimistic the crypto market feels, read 63 at 19:00 UTC on Oct 16, up 10 points over the prior 24 hours.

The dollar tokens traders keep on hand to buy crypto went the other way. Total stablecoin supply came to $306.00B, down 0.17% over the same 24 hours.

$BTC held 59.35% of the whole crypto market's value at the same reading.

Bitcoin holds 59.41% of crypto's value

Bitcoin accounted for 59.41% of crypto's total market value at 19:42 UTC on Oct 16. Traders call that share dominance. It means more than half of all the money held in crypto sits in a single coin.

Ether held 10.69% of the same $2.75T market. Every other token, from large caps to small listings, splits whatever share is left.

This is one snapshot, a level rather than a direction. It shows where the money sat on Oct 16, not which way it is moving between coins.

Layer 2 coins lead, Meme alone slips

The Meme basket was the only one of our eight themes to finish the 24 hours to Oct 16 in the red, off 0.54%. Layer 2 coins led the board at +4.79%, ahead of DePIN at 2.3% and AI at 2.13%.

Over 30 days, every basket is ahead of Bitcoin's 8.7%. Quantum leads by 60.8 percentage points on a 69.5% gain, and Layer 2 sits 48.6 points clear at 57.4%. Meme is barely ahead, 1 point clear at 9.7%.

Each theme is an equal weight basket of Binance spot pairs, rebased to Jan 1, 2025.

Ether led the day's liquidations

Ether led liquidations in the 24 hours to Oct 16, with $60.1M of leveraged positions forced shut, including the largest single one at $7.4M. US spot $ETH ETFs also had -$60.2M in net flow on Oct 15, against $5.1M into the $BTC funds.

Across the market, $237.5M was liquidated over 64,682 events, $155.3M from longs and $82.2M from shorts. Perpetual open interest, the money held in open futures bets, was $72.53B across 27 venues, -1.06% against a day earlier.

Hyperliquid's largest accounts by equity held 41.8% of their notional on the long side, across 280 with open positions. The biggest Bitcoin bid wall sat at $81.6K, $34.9M deep and 0.05% below mid.

Shorts take up 67.2% of Jupiter's capacity

On Jupiter, the Solana based perps venue, short positions had taken up 67.22% of the pool capacity set aside for them in SOL, ETH and BTC as of Oct 16. Long capacity is far less used, at 11.21% for $SOL, 6.91% for Ether and 14.4% for Bitcoin.

The crowd itself leans the other way. Longs hold 80.5% of open positions, $70.6M against $17.1M in shorts, and $SOL alone carries $48.1M long and $11.3M short.

The JLP pool, the liquidity that takes the other side of every trade on the venue, holds $870.3M and shows an 8% annual rate for its holders.

GM Trade traders split almost evenly

GM Trade, the largest Solana perpetual venue we read, ended Oct 16 with its traders split almost down the middle. Across all its markets they held $96.3M of longs against $97.8M of shorts. The median hourly funding rate was -0.0002%, a tiny payment from shorts to longs.

Its book isn't only crypto. Two of the five largest single markets on the Solana board are currency pairs on GM Trade, AUD at $12.7M and USDCAD at $12.2M.

Jupiter Perps stands apart, with $70.6M of longs against $17.2M of shorts. Six venues carried $228.9M of open interest across 282 markets, with $1.60B traded over 24 hours. GM Trade held 42.4% of that open interest.