In the short term, I’m keeping an eye on $GTC and not chasing the move. The complete scan covering 526 USDT perpetual contracts within the eligible range at 02:01 Beijing time on Oct 5 showed GTCUSDT ranked #1 with a 24-hour gain of 29.223%. Before the rescan issued at 02:13, it was still #1 with a 29.298% rise, current price 0.148020, and approximately 56.12 million USDT in executed quote volume. This ranking is a rolling-window snapshot and does not mean the upward momentum will continue, nor is it the overall market by total trading volume.
More importantly, break down the two full-hour candles from 00:00 and 01:00: the first went from an open of 0.12074 and closed at 0.13764 with about 15.81 million USDT in quoted volume; the second closed at 0.14550 with about 13.94 million. Both hours saw consecutive higher closes. Volume in the second hour dipped slightly, but it remained far above the earlier hourly range of roughly 0.9 million to 2.6 million. The 02:00 candle was not fully closed at the time, so I won’t use it to confirm the breakout. 0.14913 was the 24-hour high observed at 02:03. If later full-hour candles fall back below 0.13764, then the freshly formed breakout with expanded volume needs to be re-evaluated.
On the positioning side, another boundary: the number of open contracts rose from 34.60 million GTC at 00:00 to 38.83 million at 01:00—about a 12.2% increase. This only indicates that contract exposure increased; it cannot distinguish whether it was driven by new longs or new shorts. In the same period, the realized/settled funding rate was around -0.00483% at 00:00, and the next period’s indicator value seen at 02:03 was about -0.00905%. When price is pushing up and OI is rising while the funding rate is negative, it suggests the perpetual market is not simply crowded with one-sided longs. It cannot alone prove “shorts are being squeezed”; it could also come with hedging or new short positions.
Gitcoin’s official governance forum update on Oct 1 discussed the Governor upgrade and the Techne pilot, along with another Snapshot proposal involving voting thresholds. However, there is currently no direct information linking those governance developments to this pre-dawn surge, so I won’t write the old announcements as the catalyst. The incremental, verifiable signal right now is the upward move on two consecutive full hours with high traded volume and OI expansion. Next, the key is to watch whether full-hour closes near 0.14913 can confirm, and whether 0.13764 can hold when volume falls back. If it turns out to be only price rising while volume and open interest both weaken together, then the structure would differ from this breakout.
The above is a record of market structure and does not constitute trading advice.
More importantly, break down the two full-hour candles from 00:00 and 01:00: the first went from an open of 0.12074 and closed at 0.13764 with about 15.81 million USDT in quoted volume; the second closed at 0.14550 with about 13.94 million. Both hours saw consecutive higher closes. Volume in the second hour dipped slightly, but it remained far above the earlier hourly range of roughly 0.9 million to 2.6 million. The 02:00 candle was not fully closed at the time, so I won’t use it to confirm the breakout. 0.14913 was the 24-hour high observed at 02:03. If later full-hour candles fall back below 0.13764, then the freshly formed breakout with expanded volume needs to be re-evaluated.
On the positioning side, another boundary: the number of open contracts rose from 34.60 million GTC at 00:00 to 38.83 million at 01:00—about a 12.2% increase. This only indicates that contract exposure increased; it cannot distinguish whether it was driven by new longs or new shorts. In the same period, the realized/settled funding rate was around -0.00483% at 00:00, and the next period’s indicator value seen at 02:03 was about -0.00905%. When price is pushing up and OI is rising while the funding rate is negative, it suggests the perpetual market is not simply crowded with one-sided longs. It cannot alone prove “shorts are being squeezed”; it could also come with hedging or new short positions.
Gitcoin’s official governance forum update on Oct 1 discussed the Governor upgrade and the Techne pilot, along with another Snapshot proposal involving voting thresholds. However, there is currently no direct information linking those governance developments to this pre-dawn surge, so I won’t write the old announcements as the catalyst. The incremental, verifiable signal right now is the upward move on two consecutive full hours with high traded volume and OI expansion. Next, the key is to watch whether full-hour closes near 0.14913 can confirm, and whether 0.13764 can hold when volume falls back. If it turns out to be only price rising while volume and open interest both weaken together, then the structure would differ from this breakout.
The above is a record of market structure and does not constitute trading advice.
