Glossary

The periodic payment between the two sides of a perpetual future, usually every eight hours. When it is positive, longs pay shorts; when it is negative, shorts pay longs.

why the brief watches it High and stuck funding says the crowd is leaning long and paying to stay there; it is the cost of being on the popular side, and the first thing to snap when the price turns.

The dollar value of Bitcoin futures still open across the venues CoinGecko covers, long and short counted once. It is not every venue on earth; the tape names the source, and a single exchange is confirmation only.

why the brief watches it Open interest climbing into a level says leverage is building there; a fall on a sharp move says positions were forced out, which is how a move overshoots.

The US dollar index: the dollar measured against a basket of six major currencies, the euro weighing most. It rises when the dollar strengthens.

why the brief watches it A strong dollar drains liquidity from every asset priced in it; Bitcoin has spent most of its history moving against the dollar, so the brief reads DXY before it reads the chart.

The yield on the United States ten-year Treasury note, the benchmark for long-term dollar interest rates. It moves with growth and inflation expectations and with the supply of new debt.

why the brief watches it Rising real yields raise the return on holding cash and bonds, which pulls money from assets that pay nothing; the ten-year is the macro clock the brief sets the call by.

The overnight rate at which banks lend reserves to each other, set within a target range by the Federal Reserve. It is the short end of every dollar rate.

why the brief watches it The brief watches the rate, the market's pricing of the next move, and the gap between them; a surprise at a Fed meeting reprices everything downstream at once.

The two benchmark crude oil prices: Brent from the North Sea, West Texas Intermediate from the United States. Brent prices most of the world's oil; WTI stands in on the tape when Brent is silent.

why the brief watches it Oil is the inflation input central banks cannot control; a sharp rise makes a rate cut harder and a hike easier, and the brief's transmission chain often starts here.

A futures contract with no expiry, kept near the spot price by the funding rate rather than by a settlement date. Most leveraged Bitcoin trading happens in perpetuals.

why the brief watches it The perpetual market is where positioning is visible: its funding, open interest and liquidations are the brief's read of who is leaning which way.

The gap between a future's price and the spot price, usually quoted as an annualised percentage. A wide positive basis means traders will pay a premium to hold the future.

why the brief watches it The basis is the price of leverage: rich when the market is confident and crowded, thin or negative when it is fearful.

The forced closing of a leveraged position when its margin runs out. The exchange sells a long or buys back a short at the market, whatever the price.

why the brief watches it Clusters of liquidations sit at the levels the brief draws; a move into them feeds on itself, which is why the levels matter more than the round numbers.

The daily and weekly charts, as against the hourly or four-hour ones the day is traded on. A level that holds on the higher timeframe has been tested by more capital over more time.

why the brief watches it The brief's call is made on the higher timeframe and only refined intraday, so a level that breaks for an hour and closes back inside has not broken.

The side of the market most leveraged traders are on, read from funding, the basis and open interest together. It is not the side that is wrong, only the side with the most to unwind.

why the brief watches it The brief names the crowded side because a move against it is the one that accelerates; the posture leans away from it before the news, not after.

How this revision's call stands against the previous one: strengthened, unchanged, weakened, invalidated, replaced, or baseline when nothing came before. It is set by the writer and printed in the meta strip under the call.

why the brief watches it The status is the day's story in one word; the chart of statuses by revision on the home is how a reader sees a call harden or fall apart.

How much weight the writer puts on the call, from very low to very high. It is a judgement about the evidence, not a probability.

why the brief watches it Confidence is meant to move: a call that stays very high through contradicting evidence is a warning about the brief, not about the market.

The one decision the call implies right now, stated as a stance rather than an order. It says what the reader would be doing, not what to buy.

why the brief watches it The posture is the line to remember if only one is kept; the close of every brief repeats it for that reason.

The condition, usually a price level or a dated print, under which the call is wrong and is withdrawn. It is written when the call is made, not after.

why the brief watches it A call without an invalidation cannot be graded, so section 08 writes it down first and the next revision grades against it.

One filing of the brief within an ET day, numbered r1, r2 and so on; the first revision of a day opens it against the previous day's last brief. Every revision keeps its own address.

why the brief watches it Revisions are how the brief is honest through the day: nothing is edited in place, and what changed between two revisions can be compared on the page.

A brief that failed one of the page's own checks after it was written (an em dash, first-person voice, a level far from the price) and was filed anyway with the reasons listed. It is kept, not published as a clean brief.

why the brief watches it Honest failure beats a pretty lie: a record-only brief shows the run happened and what went wrong, so the next one can be read against it.

The bracketed mark after a claim says how it is known. OBSERVED was measured by the page itself; DERIVED was computed from measurements; INFERRED is an interpretation; HYPOTHESIS is not yet confirmed; UNKNOWN was looked for and not found.

why the brief watches it The marks are how a reader weighs a sentence without trusting the writer: a call built on OBSERVED and DERIVED stands differently from one built on INFERRED.