The CFTC Commitments of Traders (COT) reports summarize positions in reportable futures markets. They are snapshots from a stated reporting date, published later, and grouped by trader classifications. For crypto research, the report can show positioning in named regulated futures contracts such as CME Bitcoin futures; it does not describe all spot, offshore, or perpetual markets.

Open the CFTC COT reports and data · Filter or download the TFF futures-only dataset · View the traditional TFF futures-only report

Start with report date, release date, and contract

Read the report’s “positions as of” date separately from the date it was published. The CFTC’s general release information says reports usually describe Tuesday positions and are released Friday at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time. A release schedule can shift around holidays. On October 27, 2026, the CFTC announced a plan to move some agricultural-market COT data to a semiweekly schedule by the end of 2026; check the live schedule and report header for the market you are reviewing rather than assuming every COT series has the same cadence.

In the CFTC Public Reporting Environment, select the relevant report family and format, then filter by report date and the exact contract market. CFTC describes the report as covering markets where at least 20 traders hold positions at or above reporting levels. For a Bitcoin futures example, the CFTC TFF report lists “BITCOIN - CHICAGO MERCANTILE EXCHANGE.” Treat that row as CME futures positioning only. It is not an estimate of total Bitcoin ownership or positioning across every exchange and derivative product.

Choose a report family before comparing numbers

• Legacy: broad commercial and non-commercial groupings.
• Disaggregated: Producer/Merchant/Processor/User, Swap Dealers, Managed Money, and Other Reportables. CFTC says this report family covers physical commodity markets.
• Traders in Financial Futures (TFF): Dealer/Intermediary, Asset Manager/Institutional, Leveraged Funds, and Other Reportables. This is the CFTC family to inspect for financial contracts such as listed CME Bitcoin futures.

These are CFTC classifications of reportable traders, not a direct label for each trade’s purpose. CFTC explains that it classifies traders using Form 40 and other information; a trader’s classification can change. For example, “Leveraged Funds” should not be read as every hedge fund, every short-term speculator, or a directional forecast.

Read long, short, spreading, and open interest carefully

1. Keep the same contract market, report family, futures-only or combined format, and report date when making a comparison.
2. Check the report’s contract unit and open interest. Long and short position counts are futures exposure in that market; options-and-futures combined reports use a different scope from futures-only reports.
3. Compare each group’s long and short positions, spreading, change from the prior report, and percentage of open interest. Net position can be calculated as long minus short for the same group and report, but it leaves out spreading and says nothing by itself about the trader’s overall portfolio.
4. Read the explanatory notes before adding trader counts. Spreading may cause a trader to appear in more than one category count, and small category counts may be suppressed to protect confidentiality.

A week-to-week change does not always mean a trader simply opened or closed that many positions: CFTC notes that new reporting entities, traders leaving the market, and classification changes can affect comparisons.

What COT can and cannot tell you

COT is useful for examining how reportable positions in a specified futures market are distributed and how those reported positions change over time. It is delayed relative to the position date and is not a live order book, a trader-by-trader disclosure, a measure of spot holdings, or a complete view of crypto derivatives. A large net long or short is descriptive, not evidence that a market must reverse or continue. Do not compare raw contract counts across markets with different contract sizes, report families, or coverage.

For a reproducible note, record the report family, contract market, futures-only or combined format, “positions as of” date, release date, contract unit, and fields used. Link the original CFTC report or dataset row instead of relying on a chart label alone.

Common questions

Official CFTC sources

• Commitments of Traders reports and Public Reporting Environment.
• About the COT Reports — report scope, report formats, historical availability, and how to read the reports.
• COT release schedule — publication times and holiday adjustments.
• Disaggregated COT explanatory notes — classifications, spreading, and trader counts.
• CFTC TFF futures-only dataset — filterable report data with download options; the CFTC Public Reporting Environment guide describes CSV and other export formats.
• CFTC Public Reporting Environment user guide — filters, downloadable formats, and report selection.
• Historical compressed COT data — downloadable historical reports and variable names.
• CFTC announcement, October 27, 2026, on planned semiweekly agricultural-market publication.
• Current TFF futures-only report — includes named financial futures markets such as CME Bitcoin.

Reviewed 2026-11-03. This guide describes public report structure and is not investment advice or a trading signal.