One year after October 2025's $19B liquidation crash, BTC perpetual open interest remains 16% below pre-crash levels, with significantly reduced spot depth and leverage.
DeFi & Yields ·
A year after October 10, 2025's $19 billion liquidation event, Bitcoin perpetual open interest remains approximately 16% below pre-crash levels when measured in BTC terms, according to market data from Kaiko. Dollar-denominated spot depth has contracted by 27%, while leverage deployed per dollar of market depth has declined by 20%. The reduction in leverage relative to liquidity suggests a structural shift toward reduced risk exposure across the market.
The persistent gap in open interest and depth indicates that market participants have not fully rebuilt positions to pre-crash levels despite a full year of recovery time. Thinner order books mean price moves can travel further on smaller trade sizes, creating conditions where lower notional volume could produce larger percentage price swings than before the event. This dynamic remains relevant for traders and market makers calibrating position sizing to current market structure rather than conditions that prevailed prior to the crash.