ETH: CFTC Net Positions by Trader Group
Shown as its 2–31 Oct 2026 sample; the latest readings and full history are included with Plus.
The net long or short position of each trader group in Ethereum futures on US-regulated exchanges: asset managers, leveraged funds, dealers, other large traders and small traders.
Why use it. The CFTC sorts every large trader by type. Asset managers (funds, ETFs and pensions) tend to hold long, while leveraged funds (hedge funds and trading firms) often sit short as the other leg of the basis trade: they buy the coin or a spot ETF and sell futures to earn the futures premium. Shifts between the groups show who is driving regulated futures. How to read it. Above zero is net long, below zero net short. Leveraged funds getting more short while asset managers add longs is basis trading rather than a bet on a fall; leveraged funds covering as the futures premium shrinks is that trade unwinding. Non-Reportables are the small traders below the CFTC's reporting threshold.
Calculation. For each report: long minus short positions of each group, in contracts times the contract's size in ETH, added up over every Ethereum futures contract in the report (futures only). Spreading positions are equal long and short and leave the net unchanged, so the five groups' nets add up to zero. Contracts: CME (50 ETH a contract, from 6 Apr 2021); CME Micro (0.1 ETH a contract, from 14 Dec 2021); Coinbase Nano (0.1 ETH a contract, from 14 Nov 2023); Coinbase Nano Perp-Style (0.1 ETH a contract, from 22 Jul 2025). One value per weekly report, dated the Tuesday whose positions it lists (positions at that day's close); the CFTC publishes each report the following Friday at 15:30 US Eastern time and CryptoKeyhole reads it within ten minutes. The CFTC revises a report now and then; the whole history is read again every day. Source: the CFTC's Traders in Financial Futures report (public data of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission), read by CryptoKeyhole.