Crypto’s leverage machine finds new life beyond Bitcoin bets

A year after crypto’s historic crash, leveraged trading has yet to regain its old swagger. But the appetite for outsize bets hasn’t disappeared. Increasingly, the machinery that made crypto notorious for speculation is being turned on stocks, commodities and other traditional assets rather than just digital tokens.

New data from Talos show the shift. Across five major trading venues, total open interest in perpetual futures — a gauge of outstanding speculative positions — has fallen to about $67 billion from $81 billion over the past year. Yet open interest in contracts tied to so-called real-world assets has gone from virtually nothing to $9 billion, claiming 14% of the total across those venues.

The retreat from crypto-native bets has been broad. Bitcoin perpetuals have shed roughly $8 billion in open interest, Ether $5 billion and smaller tokens another $10 billion. Growth in contracts linked to traditional assets has only partly offset those losses, suggesting crypto’s speculative machinery is finding new uses even as traders show less appetite for leveraged bets on digital tokens.

“What’s particularly striking is that while overall perpetual futures open interest remains below last October’s levels, the composition of the market has changed considerably,” said Samar Sen, head of international markets at Talos.

The shift has unfolded in the shadow of last year’s Oct. 10 crash, when crypto suffered one of the biggest deleveraging events in its history where about $19 billion of leveraged bets in the perpetual futures market were wiped out in 24 hours.

The damage went beyond the one-day liquidation event. Leverage remained subdued even as crypto prices staged a recovery rally from August 2026, with investors still contending with higher rates, geopolitical risks and uncertainty around US crypto legislation. Bitcoin slipped roughly 2% to around $81,700 on Thursday.

“What looks like calm is really a stalemate. Rates, CLARITY delays and Middle East risk weigh on price, while ETF demand and risk appetite keep absorbing the pressure. All it takes is one side to tire for price to break out,” Yuan Rong Tan, head of ALM at QCP, wrote in a recent report.

This points to a broader structural shift in derivatives markets, with crypto-native trading infrastructure increasingly being used to gain exposure to traditional financial assets, Sen said. “As the boundaries between traditional and digital asset markets continue to blur, this suggests the next phase of growth may increasingly come from assets beyond crypto itself,” he added.

It also reflects a broader maturation of digital assets. Years of institutional adoption and closer links with Wall Street have made crypto easier for mainstream investors to access, while reducing some of the distinct speculative character that once defined the market.

“You’re probably not going to see the same kind of crazy activity you saw in the past, because the asset class has matured. In a positive sense, it has matured. In a less flattering sense, it has become a little boring,” said Yoshi Yokokawa, CEO of Alpaca.