Bitcoin (BTC) traders are aggressively returning to perpetual futures markets, demonstrating renewed confidence despite recent volatility that caused massive leveraged long position liquidations.
According to QCP Capital's latest market analysis, open interest in perpetual futures has shown significant growth alongside rising funding rates across major centralized and decentralized exchanges, indicating strong bullish sentiment among traders.
"Market optimism is rapidly returning to the highly leveraged perpetuals sector. Instead of retreating following last week's substantial liquidations, leveraged long positions are making a powerful comeback," stated QCP Capital's research team.
The firm reported that global Bitcoin perpetual futures open interest has increased from $42.8 billion to $43.6 billion, reflecting fresh capital entering the market despite the modest percentage gain.
Concurrently, annualized funding rates on prominent platforms like Deribit have surged to 13%, with positive rates signaling that long position holders are willing to pay premiums to maintain their bullish bets.
"Hyperliquid's long bias metric has also recovered dramatically to 57%, up from just 36% last week," the analysts added.
Traders' willingness to accept double-digit funding rates underscores growing conviction that Bitcoin prices will continue their upward trajectory during the historically strong fourth quarter.
Market data indicates last week's volatility failed to substantially damage investor confidence. Bitcoin experienced declines during the first four days of the previous week, with Thursday's sharp drop pushing prices below $109,000.
This correction triggered over $700 million in leveraged long position liquidations—the largest single-day liquidation event in at least six months, according to Coinglass data.
Bitcoin has subsequently recovered most losses, currently trading near $114,000 as bullish momentum returns.