Large speculators in CME Bitcoin futures held a net long position of 2,418 contracts for the week of October 20, 2026, according to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s latest Commitments of Traders report.
That is a slight pullback from the prior week’s 2,534 contracts.
The report, released October 23, also showed speculators paring bets against most US Treasury futures. Meanwhile, the euro sat deep in net short territory.
What the Bitcoin numbers show
The CFTC publishes its Commitments of Traders, or COT, data every Friday at 3:30 p.m. ET. Each release reflects positions as of the preceding Tuesday.
The 2,418-contract figure covers non-commercial speculators in CME Bitcoin futures. It blends standard and micro contracts under the legacy reporting format.
A standard CME Bitcoin contract represents 5 BTC, while a micro contract represents just 0.1 BTC.
For context, the week ending October 13 showed large speculators net long 2,534 contracts, with total open interest of 20,752 contracts. Open interest measures the total number of outstanding contracts that have not been closed out.
The more granular Traders in Financial Futures breakdown told a split story for that October 13 week. Leveraged funds, a category that typically includes hedge funds, were net short roughly 5,844 standard contracts.
Asset managers and institutions, by contrast, were net long 3,642 contracts.
Treasuries, equities and the euro
The broader report showed a fairly consistent theme in the bond market: speculators trimming short positions.
- Speculators cut their net short in CBOT US 2-year Treasury futures by 54,796 contracts to 856,783.
- Net shorts in 5-year Treasury futures fell by 6,095 contracts to 1,074,109.
- Net shorts in 10-year Treasury futures dropped by 23,809 contracts to 964,293.
- Net shorts in CBOT US Treasury bond futures shrank by 58,019 contracts to 68,419.
The lone exception was the long end. Speculators increased their net short in UltraBond Treasury futures by 53,564 contracts to 375,161.
Equity fund speculators trimmed their S&P 500 CME net short by 42,221 contracts to 348,674.
Equity fund managers cut their S&P 500 CME net long by 18,079 contracts to 894,464.
In currencies, the euro held a net short position of 134,524 contracts.
Why the positioning matters
The COT report has an important limitation. It tells you what traders hold, not why they hold it, and it makes no attempt to forecast prices.
A net long can reflect outright bullish conviction. It can also be one leg of a hedged trade, such as a basis trade where a fund buys spot exposure and sells futures to capture the price gap between them.
That caveat is especially relevant to the Bitcoin data. The October 13 split, with leveraged funds net short and asset managers net long, is consistent with a market where some participants are hedging rather than simply calling direction.
The next COT report is anticipated on October 30, 2026. Traders watching Bitcoin will want to see whether open interest holds near the 20,752-contract level recorded for October 13, and whether speculators keep inching back from their net long or start adding again.
Disclosure: This article was edited by Vivian Nguyen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.