The open interest in the bitcoin futures and perpetuals market peaked at $27.3 billion in the middle of April, and the market was much more leveraged towards further upside. We also saw high leverage in the futures market as bitcoin reached its $69,000 all-time high in November. The following charts illustrate 2021's wild tendencies in the futures market.
2022 prediction: Retail-traders haven’t learned anything from the liquidation cascades this year and will continue to go hard on leverage.