Traders Close $2B in ETH Futures; Open Interest Falls

Traders closed more than $2 billion in Ethereum futures over the past week, reducing open interest on Ether derivatives to $12.4 billion, according to Coinglass. Funding rates turned negative on several venues while short contracts accounted for about 34% of remaining open interest, per Coinalyze.

Binance posted the largest negative funding rate, near -0.0058%, indicating higher payouts from long to short positions on that venue. Ether traded above $2,300 through the period while volumes stayed muted.

CryptoQuant contributor Amr Taha characterized the recent flows as a second short-term capitulation for ETH in the past 30 days, following a similar roughly $2 billion drop in derivative open interest in March. Most of the recent deleveraging occurred on Binance and Gate; Gate’s market operator open interest fell from $4.67 billion on April 14 to about $2.88 billion within a week.

Part of the unwind overlapped with funds tied to a Kelp DAO exploit. On-chain trackers show up to $210 million in ETH connected to those events may be moved and could face liquidation as addresses mix funds.

On Hyperliquid, perpetual futures carry about $435 million in open interest. Two major whale accounts hold offsetting short and long exposure totaling roughly 20,000 ETH. The account shorting ETH reported more than $8 million in unrealized losses and has paid about $76,000 in funding, while the largest long position showed about $376,000 in unrealized gains.

Spot demand for ETH continued alongside the drop in derivatives activity. More than 2.7 million ETH were reported as awaiting deposit to the Beacon Chain contract for staking. CryptoQuant data identified roughly 2,430 structural accumulator wallets buying ETH on spot markets in the past 30 days, even as retail participants trimmed holdings.

Large holders with over 100,000 ETH remained in profit and did not show broad liquidation. Some of those investors took profits during the consolidation above $2,300. Open interest has been slow to rebuild since mid-October 2025, with traders often closing positions with modest gains rather than holding for larger directional moves.

The Ethereum Fear & Greed Index registered near neutral at 53. Negative funding rates and concentrated short exposure coincided with the declines in leverage on exchanges with the largest outflows. Meanwhile, staking deposits and spot accumulation continued to move ETH into long-term positions.