Crypto Lending and Futures Markets Undergo Orderly Deleveraging

The crypto lending and futures markets have been undergoing an orderly deleveraging process in Q2 2026. Unlike the previous bear market, where lending volumes plummeted by over 55% in a single quarter, this cycle has seen a steady decline of just 10%, 5%, and 17% in three consecutive quarters.

This moderate pace of decline is driven by market participants proactively reducing risk in stages rather than by forced liquidations or counterparty failures. The deleveraging at the corporate treasury level was primarily driven by Strategy's completion of a $1.5 billion debt buyback in May 2026, which reduced the debt used to support digital asset treasury strategies to $16.1 billion.

The futures market saw a relatively unchanged total open interest of $103.2 billion at quarter-end, with Bitcoin open interest falling by 6.24% and Ethereum's dropping by 26.31%. The top three CeFi institutions in the lending market hold a combined share of 74.96%, down 270 basis points quarter-over-quarter.

Crypto-collateralized lending declined by $11.33 billion (-16.78%) in Q2, reaching $56.16 billion, down 40.13% from the peak of $78.69 billion in Q3 2025. The USD-denominated outstanding loans on DeFi lending applications declined for the third consecutive quarter, decreasing by $7.79 billion (-27.61%) to $20.43 billion.

The contraction in CeFi lending was primarily driven by a decline in Tether's secured outstanding loans, while Galaxy, Coinbase, Ledn, Arch, Sygnum, and Milo all saw their lending books grow during the quarter. The market share of DeFi lending applications fell to 36.37%, down 544 basis points quarter-over-quarter.