Open interest screener scenarios: four cases and the thresholds for each

Open interest (OI) shows how many futures contracts on a pair are open right now, and on its own it gives no direction. It becomes useful next to price: the price + OI pair tells you whether a move runs on new positions or on old ones closing. Below are four scenarios, each of them expressible in the open interest screener form: which thresholds to set, what the alert says, and where the scenario stops working.

What the metric is, and why rising OI says nothing about direction, is covered in “What open interest is”. What the screener counts as an event, and why you may get too many alerts, is in the article about the open interest screener.

In short

A scenario comes down to three things: the OI change threshold, the comparison interval, and the liquidity floors.
The threshold is signed: −5% means OI falling. Opposite signs on OI and price are caught by a separate divergence scenario.
The alert arrives the moment the condition holds for the first time, not every minute while the move lasts.
Price and turnover over the same window are in the alert itself — you see the combination without opening a chart.

Scenario 1: the move runs on new positions

Price and OI rise together — new money is entering the move. The mirror case: price falls while OI rises — new positions are being opened on the way down. In both cases the fact of interest is the same: noticeably more contracts opened over your window than were open before.

How it looks in the form

The “OI change” scenario with a positive threshold and an interval. The interval is picked from a list — from 1 minute to 4 hours. Threshold and interval are chosen as a pair: over 5 minutes +5% is rare, while over 4 hours the same 5% accumulates as background drift and the alert stops meaning anything.

How to read the alert

An illustrative example: the alert says “OI up by 6.2%” over 15 minutes, and a line below, in the same exchange block, “Price increase: +4.1%”. That is the price ↑, OI ↑ combination. Had that line read −3.0%, the very same OI change would mean positions being built on the way down. The price line in the alert is what identifies the scenario, not the OI threshold: the threshold itself cannot tell the two apart.

Scenario 2: positions pile up while price stands still

Price holds a narrow range while OI grows steadily: contracts open on both sides, and the argument about direction is still unresolved.

Which thresholds to set

A long interval — 1 to 4 hours, the last values on the list. Accumulation is slow by nature and a short window simply does not show it: 5 minutes show noise, not a process. The threshold stays moderate: over 4 hours even a quiet coin adds a few percent of OI.

There is no “price is flat” field

The screener checks the OI change, not the fact that price stayed put. You check that yourself, from the price line in the same alert: OI +8% with price at +0.3% over 4 hours is the picture the scenario exists for. An illustrative example; those numbers come from the alert, they are not set in advance.

What to switch on alongside

The “minimum open interest” and “minimum 24-hour turnover” filters — both in millions of dollars. On a thin pair a handful of large positions move OI by whole percent, and accumulation there reflects one participant rather than a balance of forces. A pause between alerts per coin helps when OI hovers around the threshold.

Where the scenario breaks

The range can break either way, and OI will not hint which: every new long has a new short. Second: if price did rise over the window, OI in dollars rose with it without a single new position — so read the percentage change, not the dollar figure.

Scenario 3: positions are closing — unwinding and squeezes

A sharp price move with falling OI means contracts are being closed en masse, some of them by force. That is a move without new money. The form expresses this in two different ways, and they answer different questions.

A negative threshold: “OI fell by N%”

Put a minus in the threshold field — the form accepts it, and the screener treats falling OI as an event on the same footing as a rise. Keep the window short, 5 to 15 minutes: unwinding is fast, and a long window dilutes it. This scenario asks nothing about price — price arrives as a line in the alert.

OI / price divergence: the signs must differ

A separate scenario in the form with its own interval and two thresholds — one for OI, one for price. It fires only when both changes clear their thresholds in magnitude and point opposite ways. Switching it on fills in 30 minutes, 5% for OI, and 1% for price. If divergences are all you want, the basic “OI change” scenario can be switched off entirely.

A divergence alert names which of the two pictures arrived: “open interest falling, price rising — short squeeze in progress” or “open interest rising, price falling — short build-up”. Below it comes a line with both percentages and the window they were measured over.

How the screener helps

All four scenarios are the same condition checked on every futures pair every minute. By hand that works for one or two coins; the open interest screener sweeps every pair across 9 futures exchanges and sends a push or Telegram alert the moment the condition holds for the first time. You do not pick the coin in advance — the alert names it.

Open the open interest screener

Scenario 4: one threshold does not fit 4,000 pairs

The trouble with any percentage threshold is that it means different things on different coins: +5% OI on bitcoin is a large event, on a thin altcoin it is an ordinary minute. The form offers two different answers to that.

A threshold in money instead of percent

The second field of the basic scenario is the OI change in millions of dollars. It works as OR with the percentage: the alert arrives on either threshold, and the percentage can be left empty. It matters on large coins, where an inflow of tens of millions is a fraction of a percent. The threshold does not distinguish direction: an inflow and an outflow of that size are equally an event.

“Unusual move for this coin”

A separate row in the form: it fires not on “rose by N%” but on “N times more than this coin usually does”. The norm is measured on the same pair and venue, and while there is little data the mode filters nothing. Note that it works together with the percentage threshold, not instead of it — a move has to clear both conditions.

The four scenarios in one table:

What you want to notice	What to switch on	Interval, min
A move on new positions	OI change, positive threshold	5–15
Accumulation while price is flat	OI change, moderate threshold	60–240
Positions unwinding	OI change, negative threshold	5–15
Squeezes and short build-up	OI / price divergence	15–60
Inflow on a large coin	Threshold in millions of dollars	5–60

Why a scenario may not work out as intended

Five places where a configured scenario starts showing something other than what was expected.

The low-base effect

If very little is open on a coin, +20% OI is a handful of positions. The percentage looks loud and the market will not notice. The cure is not a higher threshold but the filters: a floor on open interest and a floor on 24-hour turnover.

Comparing venues by absolute numbers

The alert carries a block for every exchange where the condition fired, and their OI sizes cannot be compared directly: some venues count open interest on both sides of the contract. Compare the percentage change instead. The split by coin is visible on the open interest by exchange page.

A window longer than the event

The screener compares the value now with its value N minutes ago. A squeeze that fits in 5 minutes barely shows on a 4-hour window: OI has had time to recover. The reverse holds too — accumulation is invisible on a 5-minute window.

The OI threshold is tuned, but price is expected of it

None of the scenarios checks the direction of price — except divergence, where the signs must differ. If you specifically need “price up by X and OI up by Y over the same window”, that is a different screener: the custom one, where conditions combine with AND.

A scenario instead of a decision

The alert states one fact: where open interest changed and by how much. Position size, levels, the higher-timeframe trend, and the loss you can accept are still yours to handle — there is a separate article on risk management.

Ready-made setups

These are the same sets applied with one click in the screener settings. The values below are exactly what gets filled in.

Fast OI spike

+5% in 5 min

Period: 30 min.
Pause between alerts per coin: 30 min.
Adjustment range: 1.5%
Min. Open Interest Value: 0.5 M $
Min. Exchange 24h Turnover: 10 M $

Logic: the fastest open interest spikes — +5% in five minutes, meaning many new positions opened in a short time. The $10m turnover floor filters out thin pairs, where a spike like that means nothing. At most one alert per coin every half hour: this is the most frequent OI scenario.

OI growth on large coins

+20% in 4 hours

Period: 720 min.
Pause between alerts per coin: 720 min.
Adjustment range: 6%
Min. Open Interest Value: 20 M $
Min. Exchange 24h Turnover: 50 M $

Logic: open interest up 20% over four hours — positions built up steadily rather than in one burst. The floors keep only large caps: open interest from $20M, turnover from $50M. At most one alert per coin in 12 hours.

OI / price divergence

OI ↑ vs price ↓ in 30 min

Period: 360 min.
Pause between alerts per coin: 180 min.
Min. Open Interest Value: 5 M $
Min. Exchange 24h Turnover: 10 M $

Logic: base OI trigger is off — only divergence fires. OI rising while price falls means new positions are opening into the drop. OI falling while price rises means the rise comes from positions being closed. 30-min window, OI ≥ 5%, price ≥ 1%; open interest from $5M, turnover from $10M.

OI impulse + divergence

+8% in 15 min

Period: 120 min.
Pause between alerts per coin: 120 min.
Adjustment range: 2.4%
Min. Open Interest Value: 2 M $
Min. Exchange 24h Turnover: 10 M $

Logic: two scenarios in one preset. The base 8% / 15 min scenario marks sharp OI spikes; the divergence layer (60 min, OI ≥ 4%, price ≥ 1.5%) marks slower mismatches between OI and price. Two scenarios easily stack into a series on one coin, so the cap is one alert per two hours.

Any set is a starting point, not a recommendation. Once applied the thresholds are yours: move them and the screener starts counting the new way immediately.

OI screener scenarios FAQ

What OI change threshold should I set in the screener?

A threshold is always chosen together with the interval. Over a 5 to 15 minute window a few percent usually counts as an event; over 1 to 4 hours it takes noticeably more, because even a quiet coin adds several percent of OI in four hours. It is easier to start from a ready-made set and then move the threshold based on how many alerts arrive.

Can I get alerts about open interest falling?

Yes. Enter a negative value in the threshold field and the screener treats falling OI as an event on the same footing as a rise. For the picture “price rising while OI falls” the separate OI / price divergence scenario fits better: it only fires when the signs differ.

How is OI / price divergence different from a negative threshold?

A negative threshold looks only at OI and asks nothing about price. Divergence checks both: each change has to clear its own threshold in magnitude, and the signs have to be opposite. The divergence scenario has its own interval and its own two thresholds.

Why do I get one alert instead of one every minute?

The screener sends the alert the moment the condition holds for the first time. While the change over the window stays above the threshold it does not repeat for the same coin. On top of that there is a cap on alerts per coin per period and a pause between them.

How do I set up the OI screener for large coins?

A percentage threshold rarely fires on bitcoin and ether: an inflow of tens of millions of dollars is a fraction of a percent there. That is what the threshold in millions of dollars is for in the basic scenario — it works as OR with the percentage, and the percentage can be left empty.

Which markets does the open interest screener cover?

Futures only: open interest does not exist on spot, where a trade completes at once. The screener checks futures pairs across 9 exchanges, of which the ones you selected are counted.

Open interest does not predict direction — it shows what the current move runs on: new positions or old ones closing. Every form field is explained in the OI screener settings, the metric itself in “What open interest is”, and the balance between longs and shorts shows up indirectly in the funding scenarios.