Monero’s $300 Million Leverage Buildup Returns to the Chopping Block

Monero futures open interest has climbed past $300 million while XMR’s spot price is back above $600, putting notional interest near January’s peak of around $320 million. Omkar Godbole’s report, published Oct 21, 2026, at 4:57 a.m. EDT and edited by Jamie Crawley, cited SoSoValue data showing that the dollar-based measure has topped $300 million only a few times, all this year.

Open interest is also rising in coin terms, reaching 515,730 XMR, or 515.73K XMR, at a five-week high and up sharply from 400K XMR a week ago. The dollar figure represents the current value of active Monero futures positions and allows comparisons with other cryptocurrencies; because liquidations are typically reported in dollars, the larger notional figure points to a larger potential wave of forced selling.

Futures contracts allow traders to bet on a coin’s price without owning it. Leverage lets traders post a margin deposit to control a larger position, but adverse moves erode that margin and prompt exchanges to close positions to prevent losses from exceeding posted collateral and to protect against unpaid losses. Longs are liquidated when the price falls, adding to selling pressure.

A similar buildup in January preceded a 66 percent plunge, when Monero fell from about $790 to below $300 as long positions were forcibly closed. Pseudonymous crypto analyst Doctor Profit, who correctly called BTC’s 2025 top and pivoted to accumulation in July this year, said, “The last Time we reached that amount of Open Interest was in Jan 2026. Monero Crashed 66% in the next 20 days. I Smell a very big Liquidation Event on XMR.” Monero, a cryptocurrency built for privacy whose transactions are hard to trace, is the second-largest privacy coin in the world at a market capitalization of $10.9 billion.