Up 34%, yet funding rate is -0.61%: What are the bears betting on?
The most contradictory set of data on today’s leaderboard comes from $WAL .
First, the facts: over the past 24 hours, WAL is up 33.69%, trading around 0.05099, with a trading volume of 249 million U. What about the broader market over the same period? $BTC -1.50%, ETH -2.83%, SOL -2.31%—WAL is climbing on its own while everything else is in the red.
Normally, when a coin rises this much, its perpetual futures funding rate should turn positive (longs are crowded, scrambling to go long). But WAL’s funding rate is -0.6060%, deep in negative territory.
The comparison makes it even more striking: TRUTH, BTW, and Q—all of which are up on today’s leaderboard—have funding rates of +0.0154%, +0.0050%, and +0.0157%, respectively, all hovering near zero. WAL is the only one at -0.61%.
Put simply: when the funding rate is negative, shorts pay longs. In other words, on a coin that’s up 34%, longs aren’t crowded—instead, the shorts are.
This usually points to one of two scenarios: either some traders are convinced this is a fake breakout and are actively shorting, waiting for the price to crash; or the shorts are trapped. As long as the price holds up and keeps rising, a short squeeze could force them to close their positions, adding fuel to the rally. Remember: a negative funding rate is a signal of “crowdedness,” not direction.
So there are two things you shouldn’t do right now: get itchy and chase after seeing +34%, or blindly go short because you see a negative funding rate. Both essentially amount to betting on when the crowding will ease.
Here’s a question: with a coin that’s “rising while a whole lot of people are shorting it,” who do you think will give in first—the shorts, or the longs who get buried?
(Data from Wyckoff Radar and live Binance futures market data; provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.)
The most contradictory set of data on today’s leaderboard comes from $WAL .
First, the facts: over the past 24 hours, WAL is up 33.69%, trading around 0.05099, with a trading volume of 249 million U. What about the broader market over the same period? $BTC -1.50%, ETH -2.83%, SOL -2.31%—WAL is climbing on its own while everything else is in the red.
Normally, when a coin rises this much, its perpetual futures funding rate should turn positive (longs are crowded, scrambling to go long). But WAL’s funding rate is -0.6060%, deep in negative territory.
The comparison makes it even more striking: TRUTH, BTW, and Q—all of which are up on today’s leaderboard—have funding rates of +0.0154%, +0.0050%, and +0.0157%, respectively, all hovering near zero. WAL is the only one at -0.61%.
Put simply: when the funding rate is negative, shorts pay longs. In other words, on a coin that’s up 34%, longs aren’t crowded—instead, the shorts are.
This usually points to one of two scenarios: either some traders are convinced this is a fake breakout and are actively shorting, waiting for the price to crash; or the shorts are trapped. As long as the price holds up and keeps rising, a short squeeze could force them to close their positions, adding fuel to the rally. Remember: a negative funding rate is a signal of “crowdedness,” not direction.
So there are two things you shouldn’t do right now: get itchy and chase after seeing +34%, or blindly go short because you see a negative funding rate. Both essentially amount to betting on when the crowding will ease.
Here’s a question: with a coin that’s “rising while a whole lot of people are shorting it,” who do you think will give in first—the shorts, or the longs who get buried?
(Data from Wyckoff Radar and live Binance futures market data; provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.)