The most unusual thing about KAITO this hour isn’t that it’s down 2.21%; it’s that as the price falls, the number of contracts actually increases.
At 10:24 BJT, $KAITO spot is at 0.4173 USDT, down 6.41% over the past 24 hours. In the most recent hour, OI increases by 1.70% when measured by token count, but USDT notional OI declines by 0.91%—the latter is being suppressed by the drop in coin price. The real situation isn’t that positions are being exited; it’s that new contract risk is piling up at lower prices.
Meanwhile, the funding rate is -0.0652%, and the mark price is discounted to the index price by about 0.43%. Perpetual trading volume is 78.42 million USDT, which is 8.72 times the spot volume. This combination suggests that derivatives pricing is clearly tilted toward the short side, but you can’t conclude that it will “inevitably squeeze shorts.” New positions could be more shorts being added, or they could include a mix of take-profits/continuations and hedging.
If contract-based OI continues to rise and the negative basis widens, the crowding effect will deepen. But if the spot ratio increases and the funding rate and basis revert toward neutral, then pricing would shift from leverage-driven games back to spot-driven dynamics.
At 10:24 BJT, $KAITO spot is at 0.4173 USDT, down 6.41% over the past 24 hours. In the most recent hour, OI increases by 1.70% when measured by token count, but USDT notional OI declines by 0.91%—the latter is being suppressed by the drop in coin price. The real situation isn’t that positions are being exited; it’s that new contract risk is piling up at lower prices.
Meanwhile, the funding rate is -0.0652%, and the mark price is discounted to the index price by about 0.43%. Perpetual trading volume is 78.42 million USDT, which is 8.72 times the spot volume. This combination suggests that derivatives pricing is clearly tilted toward the short side, but you can’t conclude that it will “inevitably squeeze shorts.” New positions could be more shorts being added, or they could include a mix of take-profits/continuations and hedging.
If contract-based OI continues to rise and the negative basis widens, the crowding effect will deepen. But if the spot ratio increases and the funding rate and basis revert toward neutral, then pricing would shift from leverage-driven games back to spot-driven dynamics.