First, let’s see where the money is going. For this downturn, I’m looking at just two things.

NBIS is an asset in the traditional finance sector, and it has recently shown clear signs of unusual activity in the derivatives market. Its price is currently $121.62, down about 20.4% over 24 hours. But contract trading volume has surged to around $530 million over the same period, showing that bulls and bears are battling it out—not that this is some neglected, illiquid asset.

The most interesting part is that open interest is surging even as the price plunges. Over the past 3 hours, NBIS contract open interest (OI) has grown by 75.6%, reaching about $68 million in total. Put simply, OI is the total amount of contracts in the market that haven’t been closed out. When it rises quickly, it means new money is entering and opening positions, rather than existing positions being closed. A falling price and rising open interest usually mean that some traders are continually adding leverage to buy into the dip.

The data confirms this as well. Long positions account for 74.5% of large accounts, the long-to-short account ratio is 2.92, and long positions make up 63.5% of holdings. In other words, big money is broadly on the long side, buying more as prices fall. Meanwhile, the funding rate is only around 0.0004, close to neutral. This suggests that although bulls are active, they’re not yet so frenzied that they’re willing to pay steep fees to grab positions.

Putting it all together, $NBIS today looks more like a leveraged countertrend position build-up: prices pulled back sharply, and bulls used the dip to increase their positions, betting on the opportunity created by the drop. This structure is highly volatile: prices can rise quickly, but if the market keeps moving against them, highly leveraged bulls may be liquidated, accelerating the decline.

Beginners should keep an eye on two figures: OI and the funding rate. If OI keeps surging while the price doesn’t rise, it means more and more bulls are crowding in. If the funding rate suddenly spikes, it signals that bullish sentiment is overheated. Conversely, a rapid drop in OI often signals that leverage is being flushed out. Understanding these two indicators is more useful than staring at an intraday chart and guessing which way prices will go.

⚠️ This is not investment advice. Futures trading involves risk.

I’ll call the direction, keep track of wins and losses, and own it in my next post if I’m wrong.

— Where the Money Flows · Today’s post #4. The next one will tell the story.

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