Open interest screener: what it catches and what the alert says
Every minute the open interest screener takes the open interest of every futures pair across 9 exchanges, compares it with its value N minutes ago, and sends an alert when the change clears your threshold. You do not pick the coin in advance: the screener watches the whole market and names the pair itself. What the metric is and how to read it next to price is covered in “What open interest is”; this article is about what the screener counts as an event and why you may get too many alerts or too few.
In short
- The screener compares every futures pair’s open interest with its value N minutes ago and sends an alert when the change clears your threshold.
- There are four conditions: percentage, dollar amount, how unusual the move is for that coin, and OI diverging from price. Any enabled one is enough.
- One move, one alert: the condition has to hold now and not have held a minute earlier.
- Futures only — spot has no open interest, so spot venues are never checked.
What exactly counts as an event
Every minute the screener takes the pair’s current snapshot and the snapshot from N minutes ago — you set the interval yourself, anywhere from 1 minute to 4 hours. Then it checks the conditions you enabled. Conditions work as an “or”: the alert goes out as soon as any one of them fires.
| Condition | When it fires |
|---|---|
| OI change in percent | Open interest changed by the set percentage over the interval. The threshold is signed: “+5%” is positions building, “−5%” is positions closing. |
| OI change in dollars | The dollar size of open interest changed by more than the set amount over the same interval. Direction does not matter: inflow and outflow are equally an event. |
| Unusual move | Not a separate condition but a filter on top of the percentage one: the move also has to be N times larger than normal for that same coin on that same interval. |
| OI / price divergence | OI and price moved in opposite directions over the interval, and each cleared its own threshold. This condition has an interval of its own. |
Percent and dollars answer different questions
On a coin with $3m of open interest, $2m flowing in is a 67% jump, and the percentage threshold catches it. On BTC the same $2m is hundredths of a percent, and the percentage threshold will never see it. That is why the dollar threshold runs alongside the percentage one, not together with it: either is enough. One subtlety: the dollar threshold measures OI in money, and that also grows from price alone — during a strong price move the figure shifts without a single new position.How this screener differs from its neighbours
The screeners are easy to mix up: each of them alerts on a sharp change. What tells them apart is which number they actually measure.
| Screener | What it measures | Market |
|---|---|---|
| Open interest | How many positions are open on the pair right now | Futures only |
| 24h turnover | How much money went through the pair | Spot and futures |
| Price change | How far the price itself moved | Spot and futures |
| Funding rate | What it costs to hold a position and who pays whom | Futures only |
Turnover and open interest ask different questions
A pair can trade tens of millions in an hour with OI barely moving: some traders closed as much as others opened. The 24h turnover screener answers “it is being traded actively”, the OI screener answers “new positions have entered”. Those are different events, and you configure them separately.Need two conditions at once? That is another screener
The OI screener joins its conditions with an “or”. If your event is “OI rose and price rose and turnover rose”, build it in the custom screener, where every enabled condition has to hold at the same time.Venues are not summed up
Each venue is checked on its own, and only those where the condition fired make it into the alert. The screener does not add them into one market-wide number: exchanges count open interest differently, and a sum would hide where it actually grew. You can compare venues for a coin on the open interest by exchange page.What the alert contains
The alert opens with the pair and the interval — for example “ASTER/USDT | 15-Minute Change Alert”. If you switched on the alert cap, a counter of fires for that coin over the chosen period follows. Then comes a block per exchange where the condition fired:
- OI up or down by N% — the change in open interest over your interval.
- OI value — how many dollars its size changed by over the same window.
- Price increase or decrease and the turnover change over the same interval, so the price + OI combination is visible at once.
- The funding rate on that venue.
- For divergence, a separate breakdown line: “OI: +4.10% · Price: −1.30% (30 min)”.
How the screener helps
To catch a move like that by hand you would have to keep an OI chart open for every coin on each of the 9 futures venues. The screener sweeps them every minute and sends a push or Telegram alert with the numbers for each exchange where the condition fired. You do not pick the coin in advance — the alert names it.
Why you get too many alerts or too few
First, about what the screener will not do on its own. One move will not repeat. It fires on the edge: the condition has to hold now and not have held a minute earlier. Without that, a 10% OI build-up on a 15-minute window would send up to fifteen identical alerts in a row. For the same reason, when a minute’s snapshot is missing no alert goes out: “nothing to check against” is not the same as “it was below the threshold”.
Too many usually means the liquidity floors are off
On a contract with $200k of positions open, +20% OI is one stranger’s trade, and there are hundreds of such pairs on the market. Two floors — minimum open interest and minimum 24h turnover, both in millions of dollars — remove them entirely. The second lever is the pause between alerts on one coin: positions build in waves, and without a pause a single pair fills the whole feed.Too few usually means the threshold does not match the interval
Percentage and interval only work as a pair. Five percent in 15 minutes on a mid-cap altcoin is a real event; on BTC it almost never happens, and the screener will stay silent although it is set up correctly. If large coins are what you care about, set the threshold in dollars: there the move is measured in tens of millions, not in percent.Dead silent? Check that conditions are set at all
A screener that is switched on but has no interval and no threshold never fires, while from the outside it looks like it is working. The easiest check is the form itself: the scenarios block shows a counter of active conditions. Every field, with example values, is covered in “Open interest screener settings”.What this screener does not do
The screener answers one question: where open interest changed and by how much. Everything else is on you.
It does not show where price will go
Every new long has a new short on the other side, so rising OI sets no direction by itself. Which way the pressure runs only shows up next to price — which is why the price-change line sits in the same block of the alert.It does not split positions into longs and shorts
Open interest is a single number per pair. The imbalance shows up indirectly in the funding rate, which travels in the same alert, and in the “Longs to shorts” line when fresh data for the pair exists.It does not work on spot
On the spot market a trade completes at once and no open position remains, so there is no open interest there. This screener has no market filter for the same reason: it skips spot venues even if you picked them in your exchange list.It does not name an entry, a stop, or a position size
The alert carries measured numbers only: what changed, by how much, and on which venue. Levels, the higher-timeframe trend, and per-trade risk stay your job.An illustrative example: how it looks in the settings
Take an illustrative setup for mid-sized altcoins. The numbers are here to illustrate, not taken from the market.
- Percentage threshold: +4%, interval 15 minutes.
- Dollar threshold: $2m, so inflows on larger pairs are not missed.
- Minimum open interest: $5m; minimum 24h turnover: $20m.
- Pause between alerts on one coin: 30 minutes.
What that setup catches
A pair where open interest on one exchange went from $48m to $50.4m in 15 minutes: that is +5% and +$2.4m, so both thresholds cleared at once. Price rose 1.8% over the same window. Both lines will be in the alert, and the “price ↑, OI ↑” combination reads as a move running on new positions. While the build-up continues there will be no repeats: the screener has already marked the edge.What that setup misses
A coin with $3m of open interest — it does not clear the liquidity floor, however loud the percentage is. And BTC: +4% OI in 15 minutes barely ever happens there, while $2m of inflow dissolves into hundredths of a percent, so for large coins the dollar threshold is set higher and on a longer interval.
The threshold is signed. “−6% in 30 minutes” is a scenario of its own: positions closing en masse, liquidations included.
Open interest screener FAQ
What does the open interest screener do?
Every minute it compares each futures pair’s open interest with its value N minutes ago and sends a push or Telegram alert when the change clears the threshold you set. You do not pick the coin in advance: the screener checks the whole market and names the pair itself.
Which exchanges does the OI screener cover?
9 futures venues. You choose the list yourself in the settings. Spot is never checked: the spot market has no open interest.
Can I get alerts when open interest falls?
Yes. The threshold is signed: “−6%” means an alert arrives when open interest drops 6% or more over the interval. The dollar threshold does not distinguish direction at all — inflow and outflow both count as an event.
Why is the screener silent while open interest is rising?
Most often the threshold does not match the interval: 5% in 15 minutes barely happens on a large coin. The second reason is a liquidity floor cutting the pair out. The third is that no condition is set — the interval or the threshold is empty, and the screener never fires.
Why does one move produce only one alert?
The screener fires on the edge: the condition has to hold now and not have held a minute earlier. Otherwise one move would print as many times as there are minutes in the interval. The next alert for that coin arrives when the condition fires again and the pause you set has passed.
What does open interest / price divergence mean?
It is the scenario where OI and price moved in opposite directions over the interval and each cleared its own threshold. OI rising while price falls means shorts are building. OI falling while price rises means shorts are closing. Both numbers appear on a separate line in the alert.
How is the OI screener different from the turnover screener?
Turnover shows how much money went through the pair; open interest shows how many positions stayed open. Turnover can be high while OI is flat, if some traders close as much as others open. Also, the turnover screener sees spot and futures, the OI screener only futures.
Every form field, with example values, is covered in “Open interest screener settings”. How to read OI next to price in concrete situations is in “Open interest use cases”, and the metric itself is explained in “What open interest is”.
Other Knowledge Base Articles
Basic theory
About Our Screeners
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