Binance coin: Spot vs. Futures traders – Who's in control of BNB's price?

Business Mayor

18-05-2025

BNB price rose 0.10% in 24 hours, but futures traders showed reduced confidence with declining Open Interest.
Short traders lost over $102K in 24 hours despite a bearish bias, hinting at underlying bullish resilience.
Binance Coin's [BNB] price movement over the past 24 hours has remained neutral, with a modest gain of 0.10%.
While that sounds uneventful, under the hood, market behavior and on-chain signals tell a far more nuanced story.
Spot and futures traders take different sides
Spot traders have taken the bullish position, continuing to acquire more BNB from the market.
Over the last day alone, $8.34 million worth of BNB moved off exchanges, bringing the week's net outflow to $31.28 million.
This purchase is worth noting, as it indicates traders are acquiring BNB from exchanges and transferring it to private wallets.
Source: CoinGlass
This trend indicates a long-term positive outlook for the asset, which is crucial for maintaining its price stability.
However, futures traders remain unconvinced.
Notably, AMBCrypto found that Binance's largest traders by position size are the most bearish. This sentiment is reflected in the Taker Buy/Sell Ratio, reported by CoinGlass at 0.955.
The Taker Buy/Sell Ratio, a key market indicator from CoinGlass, measures whether buying volume (above 1) or selling volume (below 1) is dominant.
The broader market appears even more bearish, with the press time ratio at 0.9139, suggesting weaker buying pressure overall.
Source: CoinGlass
Open Interest (OI) has also declined, continuously trending lower.
BNB's OI fell from $855.2 million earlier in May to $789.9 million. That drop in unsettled contracts shows reduced conviction and fading momentum.
Source: CoinGlass
Surprisingly, short traders recorded higher losses in the past 24 hours, losing $102,560 compared to $2,140 lost by long traders.
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Greater losses among short traders suggest that the market has tilted against them, giving the advantage to the longs.
BNB development activity drops
Having said that, activity on the BNB Smart Chain paints a more cautious picture. After a solid build-up earlier this month, daily smart contract deployment has sharply pulled back.
According to BscScan, deployments dropped 34.77% in 24 hours to 54,369.
Verified contracts also fell 22.69% to 259. Naturally, fewer contracts mean lower network usage and less on-chain demand for BNB.
Source: BSCscan
The continued slowdown in development activity could be a defining factor in whether BNB stages a rally or faces further decline.