PANews reported on February 15th, citing CoinDesk, that the global Bitcoin market sentiment is increasingly polarized: US institutional investors are maintaining their leveraged positions in Bitcoin, while non-US traders are reducing their positions. This gap is most pronounced in the futures market. Greg Cipolaro, Head of Research at NYDIG, stated that data from CME, the preferred platform for US hedge funds and institutions, shows that traders are still willing to pay a premium to maintain their long Bitcoin positions. This is evident in the one-month annualized basis (the premium of futures relative to the spot price), which remains higher than that of the offshore platform Deribit. Cipolaro wrote, "The more pronounced decline in the offshore basis indicates weakening demand for leveraged long exposure, and the widening basis between CME and Deribit serves as a real-time measure of regional risk appetite."