At the midnight funding settlement, shorts on $SAND paid longs about $0.70 for every $100 of position.
Just how extreme is that? Looking back at the previous 19 settlements (back to 10/11), the most negative rate was only -0.060%. This time it was -0.699%—more than ten times as large. The estimated rate from the 8 a.m. settlement is still hovering around -0.69%.
The strange part is that the price is going up. Binance spot SAND is now around 0.0627, up about 15% over 24 hours, with an intraday high of 0.06686. Over the same period, the perpetual contract only reached 0.06609. Spot is leading, and the contract is still trading well below the spot index—such a deeply negative funding rate means sellers in the contract market are in more of a hurry, willing to open shorts at a discount.
And money really is flowing into the contracts. Open interest in USDT-margined contracts rose from about 207 million tokens at 1 p.m. yesterday to 266 million, an increase of nearly 30%. Contract volume over 24 hours was about $130 million, more than eight times spot volume (about $14.9 million).
There’s another set of numbers that doesn’t quite add up: the share of long positions held by Binance’s top traders fell from around 60% to 51%, while the long/short ratio for regular accounts climbed from 0.88 to 1.06, flipping from net short to net long.
I looked around for news, but couldn’t find any new announcement that would explain today’s big green candle. The project’s recent push has been a developer partnership article with Xsolla dated 10/14, and a post reposted by its official account also mentioned that Sandbox Studio is launching later this month. That’s background narrative, not a reason for today’s rally.
I’m leaning bullish, with the fuel coming from the shorts themselves. Spot is leading, shorts are paying 0.7% every 8 hours, and open interest keeps climbing. As long as spot buyers don’t pull out, the longer these shorts stay open, the more it hurts; covering them is buying pressure in itself. The one figure I’m not comfortable with is the falling share of long positions among top traders, though it doesn’t tell us whether they’re opening shorts or taking profit on longs. The high-volume breakout level tonight is around 0.0600, marked on the chart.
Put simply, the shorts are paying the longs’ salaries in this rally. When the payments stop depends on how spot behaves.
$SAND
Just how extreme is that? Looking back at the previous 19 settlements (back to 10/11), the most negative rate was only -0.060%. This time it was -0.699%—more than ten times as large. The estimated rate from the 8 a.m. settlement is still hovering around -0.69%.
The strange part is that the price is going up. Binance spot SAND is now around 0.0627, up about 15% over 24 hours, with an intraday high of 0.06686. Over the same period, the perpetual contract only reached 0.06609. Spot is leading, and the contract is still trading well below the spot index—such a deeply negative funding rate means sellers in the contract market are in more of a hurry, willing to open shorts at a discount.
And money really is flowing into the contracts. Open interest in USDT-margined contracts rose from about 207 million tokens at 1 p.m. yesterday to 266 million, an increase of nearly 30%. Contract volume over 24 hours was about $130 million, more than eight times spot volume (about $14.9 million).
There’s another set of numbers that doesn’t quite add up: the share of long positions held by Binance’s top traders fell from around 60% to 51%, while the long/short ratio for regular accounts climbed from 0.88 to 1.06, flipping from net short to net long.
I looked around for news, but couldn’t find any new announcement that would explain today’s big green candle. The project’s recent push has been a developer partnership article with Xsolla dated 10/14, and a post reposted by its official account also mentioned that Sandbox Studio is launching later this month. That’s background narrative, not a reason for today’s rally.
I’m leaning bullish, with the fuel coming from the shorts themselves. Spot is leading, shorts are paying 0.7% every 8 hours, and open interest keeps climbing. As long as spot buyers don’t pull out, the longer these shorts stay open, the more it hurts; covering them is buying pressure in itself. The one figure I’m not comfortable with is the falling share of long positions among top traders, though it doesn’t tell us whether they’re opening shorts or taking profit on longs. The high-volume breakout level tonight is around 0.0600, marked on the chart.
Put simply, the shorts are paying the longs’ salaries in this rally. When the payments stop depends on how spot behaves.
$SAND