Wall Street stays optimistic about bitcoin (BTC) while offshore traders pull back
The gap in futures basis between CME and Deribit reveals contrasting risk appetites across regions.
Feb 15, 2026, 12:00 p.m.
A split in global bitcoin sentiment is widening: U.S. institutional buyers remain confident, whereas offshore traders are retreating from their positions.
The clearest signal appears in futures markets. CME, the primary venue for hedge funds and large U.S. desks, shows traders continuing to pay a premium to maintain long exposure to bitcoin. This observation comes from Greg Cipolaro, head of research at NYDIG.
STORY CONTINUES BELOW
The premium is especially visible on a one-month annualized basis—the measure of futures relative to spot prices—which still sits higher on CME than on the offshore Deribit exchange.
“The sharper drop in offshore basis indicates a cooling in appetite for leveraged long bets,” Cipolaro noted. “The widening CME–Deribit basis gap serves as a real-time proxy for regional risk tolerance.”
Bitcoin surged earlier in the month after dipping to around $60,000, then recovered. Some market watchers attributed the drop to fears that quantum computing could threaten cryptographic security. NYDIG, however, argues that those concerns aren’t supported by the data.
If quantum risk were truly weighing on crypto, you’d expect quantum-related equities (for example, IONQ Inc. and D-Wave Quantum Inc.) to diverge from bitcoin. Instead, those stocks fell alongside bitcoin, suggesting a broader retreat from long-term, future-oriented assets rather than a crypto-specific threat.
Additionally, Google Trends data show that searches for “quantum computing bitcoin” tend to rise when BTC’s price climbs, signaling investor curiosity rather than alarm.
AI Disclosure: Portions of this article were generated with AI assistance and reviewed by our editors to ensure accuracy and adherence to standards (https://www.coindesk.com/ethics). For details, see CoinDesk’s full AI Policy (https://www.coindesk.com/coindesk-news/2023/04/14/how-coindesk-will-use-generative-ai-tools).
More For You
XRP is outpacing bitcoin and ether after investors piled into the recent crash
10 minutes ago
XRP’s rally, up 38% from its crash lows on Feb. 6, follows a wave of coin withdrawal from Binance and suggests accumulation after the downturn.
Read full story (https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/02/15/xrp-is-outrunning-bitcoin-and-ether-after-investors-piled-into-the-recent-crash)
But here’s where it gets controversial: does the CME–Deribit basis gap truly reflect regional risk appetite, or is it also masking other forces such as liquidity, regulatory headlines, or product availability? And this is the part most people miss: how should investors interpret a higher futures premium on a mature market like CME compared with a more speculative venue like Deribit? What would you consider the clearest signal of real demand versus speculative fervor in today’s crypto landscape?
