Where Are We Going?

As the holiday season is now fully underway, what will bitcoin’s fate be going into the end of 2025? After several all-time highs and calls of anywhere from $150k to $400k by the end of the year, BTC trading above $92k this morning could be seen as quite disappointing. Since 10/10, the questions of “was the system over levered” and “did anyone big get liquidated” have weighed on the price of BTC greatly. More will come out regarding the second question posed in the coming months, but it seems there has been less “forced” sell pressure going on in spot markets, especially when looking at Binance CVD in particular. Perpetual futures funding rates remain quite flat on centralized exchanges, but are up over 10% annualized on Hyperliquid and Lighter. 

While Binance is still the biggest game in town by volume for spot and derivatives, the rise of the newer decentralized exchanges focused on perpetual futures have taken the market by storm. Looking at the delta between the CEX’s and DEX’s in perpetual markets is quite interesting, as we clearly see traders actively taking long positions on-chain first. Hyperliquid and Lighter funding rates are nearly 10 points higher than their centralized counterparts. These exchanges have become leading indicators in the last few months, as the low barriers to sign up, advanced trading interfaces, and advanced API’s offer everything that the old centralized platforms have, but with the promise of “decentralization”. Over time, it is expected that there will be far more validators and more robust security practices on these DEX’s, and that this is truly the future of finance. As blockchains continue to scale and handle immense throughput figures, it is only a matter of time before these marketplaces are standard fare.