[Digital Today reporter Yoonseo Lee] Crypto market deleveraging has continued for three consecutive quarters, but an analysis says it looks different from the sudden collapse seen in the 2022 bear market.

On Aug. 18, blockchain media outlet CoinPost reported that Galaxy Research, in its report titled "State of Crypto Leverage Q2 2026", said leverage is continuing to shrink across the market but, unlike in the past, is proceeding in a relatively orderly way.

The key is the pace of deleveraging. Galaxy Research noted that the declines over the past three quarters were 10 percent, 5 percent and 17 percent, a relatively gradual pace. In 2022, outstanding crypto collateralized loans plunged more than 55 percent in a single quarter, then fell 9 percent and 29 percent in the third and fourth quarters, extending the sharp contraction. It said the recent deleveraging is unfolding in stages over multiple quarters rather than hitting all at once as it did then.

Total outstanding loans across the market were tallied at $56.16 billion, down 16.78 percent from the previous quarter. That is a significant drop from the record high of $78.69 billion in the third quarter of 2025.

Galaxy Research focused on the fact that the decline is a gradual contraction that has continued over three quarters rather than a plunge in a single quarter. It said the shift was driven more by investors gradually reducing risk exposure than by forced liquidations or a major counterparty bankruptcy.

Balances on decentralized finance (DeFi) lending applications fell 27.61 percent over the period to $20.43 billion, extending declines for a third straight quarter. Centralized finance (CeFi) lending balances also fell 9.62 percent from the previous quarter to $22.98 billion. Even so, they remain much higher than the low of $6.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023. Galaxy Research said this structure shows the market is different from the one-way collapse phase of 2022.

Combined CeFi and DeFi outstanding loans fell 19.08 percent from the previous quarter to $43.41 billion. On-chain lending saw a larger drop, and as a result CeFi balances exceeded DeFi again for the first time since the third quarter of 2023. As of the quarter-end, DeFi lending applications' share was 47.05 percent, down 555 basis points from 52.6 percent in the previous quarter.

In the CeFi market, Tether kept the top spot with a 58.54 percent share. That was 371 basis points lower than the previous quarter, but it still accounted for more than half of the market. Maple and Nexo followed with 8.91 percent and 7.51 percent, respectively, and the combined share of the top three reached 74.96 percent. Even as the overall lending market contracted, the market structure centered on the leading operators appeared largely unchanged.

The futures market, by contrast, showed a relatively stable trend. Total open interest, including perpetual futures, stood at $103.2 billion at the quarter-end, down 3.08 percent from the previous quarter. Bitcoin (BTC) open interest fell 6.24 percent to $45.04 billion, and Ethereum (ETH) dropped 26.31 percent to $21.99 billion. By late July, total open interest had risen again to about $114.0 billion.

Based on these trends, Galaxy Research assessed that futures and the DeFi lending market are showing signs of building a bottom. It said the current market is closer to a phase of restructuring by reducing risk exposure than a shock phase of rapidly shedding leverage. It said key points to watch will be whether the decline in on-chain lending continues and whether the recovery in futures open interest extends to stabilising the lending market.