Bitcoin futures monopoly intensifies, and small coins run out of liquidity

According to Woofun AI, Andrei Grachev, founder of cryptocurrency market maker DWF Labs, pointed out that Bitcoin has established an absolute dominance in the derivatives market, while futures liquidity for other digital assets is facing severe exhaustion. This phenomenon marks the evolution of the market structure to a high degree of centralization, and both trading interest and depth of capital are accelerating the concentration of assets with the largest market capitalization.

This trend of concentration was fully verified in key platform data over the past year. Data compiled by Woofun AI shows that on leading platforms such as Binance, OKX, and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) (CME.US), Bitcoin has always occupied the vast majority of daily commodity transactions. Ethereum's performance is relatively poor, and the trading activity of other smaller tokens has shrunk further.

The underlying reason lies in the market's safe-haven logic and changes in capital structure: in a volatile environment, institutional investors and retail traders prefer assets with deeper order books, smaller spreads, and lower risk of slippage, so Bitcoin has become the first choice. Meanwhile, the Bitcoin Spot ETF launched in the US has injected a new round of institutional capital into the market, further solidifying its position as a core trading tool, and leading to continued withdrawal of capital from marginal assets.

At the micro level, the reduction in the supply of small-token futures directly reduced traders' hedging ability and speculative space. Due to declining liquidity in derivatives that are traditionally dominated by small tokens, such as perpetual swaps, traders have to turn to the spot market or decentralized exchanges to seek alternatives, but this is often accompanied by higher execution costs and uncertainty. As far as trading platforms are concerned, the extreme concentration of Bitcoin futures trading volume has intensified the battle for market share, and various platforms are optimizing the Bitcoin trading experience to retain users.

This “winner-take-all” situation makes it difficult for small token projects to attract institutional investment through the derivatives market, thereby curbing the vitality of innovation within the ecosystem and significantly reducing market diversity.

In the face of this structural shift, trading strategies urgently need to be adjusted. Although Bitcoin is seen as the safest option, investors who want to participate in small token transactions must switch to the spot market or focus on a few assets that still have some futures liquidity, such as Solana.

Although this trend has improved market stability, it clearly conflicts with the idea of decentralization. As institutional investment penetrates further and market maturity increases, it also forces participants to re-evaluate the long-term risk and opportunity structure dominated by a single asset.