CryptoQuant founder Ki Young Ju said on X that he has revised an earlier analysis of CME Bitcoin futures positioning after mislabeling a CFTC trader category.
He said he had previously labeled "Total Reportables" as "Leveraged Funds," which led to the view that hedge funds on CME had unusually flipped to a net long position in BTC futures. After the correction, he said the actual picture is that leveraged funds are still net short Bitcoin futures.
What the corrected CFTC data shows
Ki Young Ju cited CFTC futures positioning data as of Aug. 4 and laid out two main points.
Total Reportables remain slightly net long
First, the broader "Total Reportables" category was in a slight net long position overall. That group includes asset managers, market makers and dealers. Ki said the net long exposure is limited, but added that his earlier call on a broadly bullish institutional bias still stands.
Leveraged funds are still net short BTC futures
Second, leveraged funds continue to hold a net short position in BTC futures. Even so, the size of their net short in standard BTC futures has fallen by about 50% over the past year, measured in BTC terms.
Ki said the main reason is lower basis-trade returns. Once futures basis yields fell below U.S. Treasury yields, the arbitrage spread narrowed.
He added that leveraged funds are now net long in Micro BTC futures, but only on a small scale, at about +394 BTC. That equals roughly 1% of the net short size seen in standard BTC futures.
Structural short exposure has eased
Ki said leveraged funds as a whole have not yet turned net long. Still, he said their long-running structural short exposure is weakening in a visible way, which may reflect the closing of arbitrage trades as well as adjustments in directional positioning.