Futures Open Interest Across Exchanges

Total exchange BTC futures open interest stands at roughly $42.6 billion, down sharply from the $90 billion-plus peak reached in early October 2025 when bitcoin traded a hair above $126,000.

Binance leads all venues with 141,100 BTC ($10.40 billion) in futures open interest, accounting for 19.14% of the market, coinglass.com logs show. CME Group holds second position at 102,330 BTC ($7.55 billion), or 13.88% of the total, signaling that institutional participation through regulated futures remains significant even as spot prices have pulled back.

Gate holds 65,620 BTC ($4.84 billion, 8.9%), Bybit carries 63,860 BTC ($4.71 billion, 8.66%), and MEXC shows 75,980 BTC ($5.60 billion, 10.3%). OKX sits at 44,310 BTC ($3.27 billion, 6%), while the decentralized perps exchange Hyperliquid holds 29,730 BTC ($2.19 billion, 4.03%).

24-hour OI changes worth noting:

• Bybit dropped 0.69% over 24 hours, the most of any top exchange
• BingX fell 44.18% in 24-hour OI, a significant flush
• Gate gained 2.08%, and OKX added 0.63%

The OI-to-24-hour volume ratio for Kucoin reads 9.57, the highest on the tape today, which points to relatively thin volume against its open position stack.

Bitcoin Options Open Interest

Total BTC options open interest sits near $40 billion, per Coinglass data, a steep pullback from the $65 billion-plus highs logged in late November 2025.

Calls dominate at 59.25% of total options OI, representing 248,395 BTC. Puts account for 40.75%, or 170,837 BTC. A 59/41 split favors upside positioning but is not an extreme imbalance. Twenty-four-hour volume is similarly skewed, with calls at 53.27% (9,120 BTC) against puts at 46.73% (8,000 BTC).

Top Open Interest Contracts on Deribit

The single largest open interest position on Deribit is a bet that bitcoin hits $120,000 by December 2026, with 7,089.4 BTC tied to that contract. Some predictions are aligned with this perspective. The second largest is a protective position sized for a drop to $60,000 by that same date, carrying 6,509.4 BTC, which tells you that not everyone is positioned for a year-end rally.

Two other notable positions sit closer in. Traders hold 5,769.4 BTC on a contract that pays out if bitcoin reaches $80,000 by July 31, 2026, and another 5,657.5 BTC on a contract targeting $90,000 by June 26. Both suggest a cluster of bullish bets aimed at levels well above the current spot before summer ends.

CME Options: Puts Still Running Heavy

Cryptoquant data on CME options OI stacked by position shows puts consistently outpacing calls since late November 2025, even as BTC’s price has begun recovering from its February 2026 lows near $65,000. That put-heavy posture among CME participants, who tend to be institutional hedgers and asset managers, reflects caution at current price levels rather than conviction in a near-term breakout.

CME’s stacked-by-expiration logs show near-term (1 to 2 months) contracts dominating the current structure, with very limited longer-dated OI compared to the October and November 2025 buildup period.

Max Pain: Deribit, Binance, OKX

Deribit max pain for the June 26, 2026, expiry sits near $77,500 to $78,000, with notional value for that date approaching $9 billion. The furthest-dated expiry shown, March 2027, shows max pain collapsing to roughly $70,000, which would represent a roughly 4.9% move lower from the current price.

Binance max pain for June 26 hits around $85,000, well above spot, with notional value for that date reaching approximately $757 million. The curve climbs from $74,000 near-term to a peak near $85,000 before easing back toward $77,500 for later expirations.

OKX max pain tells a different story. The curve runs relatively flat near $74,000 through June 12 before climbing to approximately $78,000 by late June 26. It then holds between $75,500 and $78,000 through late 2026, before jumping sharply to near $80,500 by March 2027, the highest of the three exchanges for far-dated max pain.

Max pain theory holds that option sellers, who represent the majority of options market makers, benefit most when the underlying asset expires at the price where the maximum number of contracts finish worthless. With BTC spot at $73,600, the majority of max pain levels across all three exchanges sit above the current price for the June 26 expiry, which some traders read as gravity pulling the price higher going into that settlement.

What Traders Are Watching

The June 26 expiry is the largest single settlement date by notional value across Deribit, Binance, and OKX. Deribit alone shows roughly $8.5 billion in notional value tied to that date. How the price behaves in the days leading up to that expiry could determine whether the bulk of open call positions expire in the money or turn to dust.

CME futures OI remains near $7.55 billion despite the broad decline in total market OI since late 2025, suggesting institutional desks have not walked away from bitcoin exposure. The put-heavy positioning on CME may reflect hedged long strategies rather than outright bearish bets.

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Solving the Privacy Challenge for Institutional DeFi

Americanfortress has launched the beta version of its compliant privacy infrastructure on Arbitrum, introducing tools designed to support institutional and high- volume decentralized finance ( DeFi) activity on the Layer 2 network. The system enables users to send assets using human-readable names while automatically generating stealth addresses that shield recipient information onchain.

The company said the design preserves auditability between counterparties without relying on mixers or custodial transaction-obfuscation services. Arbitrum secures more than $15 billion in total value locked and hosts major DeFi trading ecosystems, including GMX. As institutional activity increases, firms have raised concerns about transaction visibility and wallet transparency in public blockchain environments.

“Financial infrastructure cannot scale institutionally if every transaction exposes counterparties, balances and trading behavior in real time,” said Michal Pospieszalski, CEO and CTO of Americanfortress. “Arbitrum has become one of the most important execution environments in crypto markets, and this implementation delivers a privacy layer designed for serious financial activity without relying on mixers or compromising compliance requirements.”

The beta introduces send-to-name functionality, allowing users to transact via Fortressnames rather than exposing wallet addresses. Americanfortress said the system is compatible with existing blockchain infrastructure and reduces visibility that can contribute to front-running and trade surveillance.

The launch follows new cryptographic research from the company outlining a patent-pending post-quantum security architecture for hierarchical deterministic wallets. Americanfortress said its broader stack integrates privacy-preserving transactions, naming infrastructure, and quantum-resistant wallet security into a unified framework for digital asset custody and settlement.

As part of the rollout, the firm is launching a “Receive on Arbitrum Privately” campaign encouraging users to test private receiving features through the beta wallet. The first 500 eligible participants will receive a lifetime FortressName. The campaign will target Arbitrum-native DeFi communities, including perpetual traders, liquidity providers and active onchain market participants.

“Privacy and usability are increasingly important as more sophisticated financial activity moves onchain,” said Chase Allred, senior partnerships manager at Offchain, the service provider for Arbitrum. “Infrastructure that improves operational security while remaining compatible with compliant blockchain ecosystems represents an important area of development for the wider industry.”

Americanfortress said the system is designed to support emerging automated financial workflows, including AI-driven agents transacting autonomously onchain. The company expects privacy-preserving execution environments to become increasingly necessary as algorithmic capital allocation and machine-driven trading expand across decentralized networks.

(NewsNation) – A type of criminal activity known as “wrench attacks,” in which robbers physically coerce people into handing over their cryptocurrency holdings, is on the rise, according to crypto security firm CertiK.

Nik Seetharaman, the CEO of cyberdefense company Wraith Watch, recently told Nexstar’s NewsNation that he believes the increase in wrench attacks can be partly attributed to people flaunting their wealth online, which he noted makes it easier for criminals to identify and track down people with a lot of money.

“In the crypto community especially, you have this culture of, you know, flaunting your assets and … posting pictures of yourself in (places like) Ibiza and Bali,” Seetharaman explained.

He also pointed to improvements in digital security that make it so criminals “have no option but to basically hold you at gunpoint and say, ‘Enter your password into this phone right now or bad things are going to happen to you or your family.’”

NewsNation local affiliate KTLA reported that experts also say the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies and the ability to transfer large sums in irreversible transactions make large account holders vulnerable to bad actors.

How big an issue are wrench attacks?

The name “wrench attacks” was popularized by an online comic that mocked how easily high-tech security can be undone by hitting someone with a wrench until they give up passwords, according to The Associated Press.

CertiK released a report in May detailing global instances of wrench attacks, which showed that between January and April 2026, it identified 43 incidents resulting in victims losing more than $101 million in cryptocurrency.

The firm said those incidents represent a 41% increase over the same period last year, and if the rate continues, “2026 will close with approximately 130 incidents and several hundred million dollars in losses.”

In 2025, CertiK tracked only 81 attacks that resulted in victims losing approximately $52 million, further indicating that wrench attacks are a growing issue.

Wealthy California crypto holders targeted in recent attacks

In November 2025, a San Francisco man was robbed of $13 million in digital currency after thieves posing as pizza delivery drivers forced their way into his home, bound him with duct tape, beat him with a firearm and threatened to cut off his fingers, KTLA reported, citing The San Francisco Chronicle.

Three attempted wrench attacks in Sunnyvale, San Jose and Los Angeles that occurred in the days and weeks following the San Francisco home invasion appear to be linked.

Potential wrench attack in Nancy Guthrie case?

NewsNation contributor and former FBI Special Agent Jennifer Coffindaffer believes Nancy Guthrie, the mother of “Today” host Savannah Guthrie, who has been missing for more than 100 days, could have been the victim of a wrench attack.

Coffindaffer wrote on X Tuesday that she has been “speaking about a Wrench Attack that took place literally about 90 minutes North of Nancy’s house the day before Nancy was attacked since early March.”

Guthrie was last seen at her home on Jan. 31 in Pima County, near Tucson, Arizona. She is believed to have been abducted, and investigators are scrutinizing messages that have been sent to media outlets, possibly from kidnappers, at least one of which made a bitcoin ransom demand.

Separately, TMZ received a series of communications from a person claiming to know who the kidnapper is, and that individual has demanded a $100,000 cryptocurrency payment.

NewsNation local affiliate KTLA, NewsNation’s Sean Noone and The Associated Press contributed to this report.