AVAX Open Interest Surges 6.7% to $222M, But Short Squeeze Fades Fast

Avalanche (AVAX) is trading at $7.573, up 3.0% over the past 24 hours, while aggregate open interest across derivatives venues climbed 6.7% to $222.0M. But the surge is already losing steam: OI slipped 1.1% in just the past hour, and 24-hour trading volume actually fell 15.4% to $221.9M even as positions kept piling up — a split that traders watching for a genuine breakout shouldn't ignore.

News context: Crypto Briefing reported that Avalanche expanded institutional access to AVAX through a new integration with Paxos.

Binance and Bybit Drive the OI Build, Then Pull Back

Of the 19 exchanges tracked, Binance and Bybit account for the bulk of the AVAX derivatives market: Binance holds $67.2M in open interest (30.3% share) and Bybit holds $50.2M (22.6% share), together commanding more than half the total. Both venues added open interest aggressively over 24 hours — Binance up 10.2% and Bybit up 10.1% — well ahead of Bitget's 3.6% gain on $21.6M, OKX's 3.8% gain on $11.2M and Gate's 3.0% gain on $7.0M.

The four-hour window tells a different story. Binance OI is down 1.1% over the same span, OKX is down 0.2%, Bitget is down 0.5% and Gate is down 0.5% — only Bybit is still adding, up 1.4%. That pattern is consistent with a 24-hour build that peaked several hours ago and has since started to unwind almost everywhere.

Long-Heavy Accounts, But Flat Taker Flow

Account-level positioning still skews heavily long: 68.8% of AVAX accounts are net long overall, with Binance at 68.8% long (a 2.21:1 long/short ratio) and Bybit even more lopsided at 72.7% long (2.67:1). Gate sits lower at 62.7% long (1.68:1). If this were fresh conviction building, aggressive buy-side taker flow should match it.

It doesn't. Binance's taker buy/sell split is nearly even at 51.0% long versus 49.0% short — a 1.04:1 ratio, essentially flat. Gate's taker flow is more one-sided at 66.3% long (1.96:1), closer to its account positioning. The gap on Binance between account-level long bias and near-neutral order flow suggests existing longs are holding rather than piling on, while sellers are absorbing supply without flipping sentiment. Funding reflects the same split mood: Binance, Bybit, Bitget, Aster, MEXC and LBank all sit at a flat 0.01%, while Gate (-0.0038%), Lighter (-0.0048%), BitMEX (-0.0148%) and WhiteBit (-0.0151%) are paying shorts to stay in — a minority of venues betting the move fades.

Liquidations Flip From Short Squeeze to Long Unwind

The clearest sign of the shift is in the liquidation windows. Over the past 24 hours, $59,966 was liquidated in total, split $45,937 short versus $14,029 long — a short squeeze that matches the 24-hour price rally. The 12-hour window shows the same lean, $23,972 short against $11,277 long.

But the most recent hour has flipped completely: all $5,551 in liquidations over the past hour were longs, with zero shorts liquidated, and the 4-hour window is already 98% long-side at $5,701 against just $137 short. The short squeeze that built OI over the past day has run out of fuel, and the market is now unwinding the longs that piled in during the rally.

Verdict: AVAX's 24-hour OI build to $222.0M was real but is already cooling — the 1-hour OI drop of 1.1% and the flip to long-side liquidations both point to a pullback rather than a fresh breakout. A move back above $7.70 with Binance and Bybit OI resuming positive 4-hour growth together would reopen the case for continuation; a break below $7.40 with long liquidations accelerating past the current 4-hour pace would confirm the squeeze is fully unwinding. Data as of 06:05 Beijing time on Sep 18, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.