Open interest is the sum of all open contract positions on a market, usually quoted in dollar notional. It rises when new positions open and falls when positions close. Traders read it together with price, because the combination tells you whether a move is fueled by fresh positioning or by forced unwinding.
01The two readings that matter
Price up with open interest up means new longs are arriving, which builds the crowd a future cascade can feed on. Price up with open interest falling means shorts are being closed, a squeeze burning existing fuel without adding new conviction.
After a crash, a sharp fall in open interest alongside heavy liquidation volume is the signature of forced deleveraging. The liquidated positions are gone, leverage dropped, and the market is actually less fragile afterwards. A crash on flat open interest, by contrast, mostly moved spot with the same leveraged crowd still in place, which leaves the fuel for another leg.
02Open interest and liquidation data together
Our digests report liquidation volume and its long or short split per day. Adding open interest from your data source turns that into positioning analysis: how much leverage was actually cleared on a given day. On November 8, 2026, for example, the 91% long liquidation share told the direction of the flush, while exchange OI charts showed how much total leverage survived it.