HBAR at $0.081: Binance OI Up 11%, Funding Still Negative

HBAR Nears Its 24-Hour High With Leverage Rebuilding

HBAR is trading at $0.08095 on Binance as of 21:00 Beijing time, up 1.66% in 24 hours and within 0.1% of its daily high of $0.08103. OKX shows the same price at $0.08095, with the day's range sitting between $0.07702 and $0.08101. The move is modest, but what sits underneath it is not: open interest across exchanges has climbed 4.48% to $106.3 million in the same window.

Price near the top of the range plus rising open interest is the classic setup that precedes a squeeze. What makes HBAR different from the coins that already squeezed this week is the direction of funding. Binance is still paying -0.0064% to hold longs, meaning shorts are the ones receiving payment. After a day of buying, the market still has not forced bears to capitulate.

Binance Adds 11% OI in a Day, KuCoin Follows at +8.2%

The rebuild is concentrated. Binance now holds $28.5 million of HBAR open interest, 26.78% of the total, and that position grew 11.08% in 24 hours and another 2.64% in the last four. KuCoin shows a similar pattern: its $13.6 million book is up 8.2% on the day and 8.88% in the last four hours, the fastest four-hour pace among the major venues. Bybit added 5.82% to $17.8 million.

Not everyone is loading up. Hyperliquid cut its HBAR exposure by 10.95% overnight, and Bitget trimmed 4.8%. That split is worth reading carefully: the aggressive new money sits on Binance and KuCoin, while the cautious money is leaving Hyperliquid and Bitget. When OI grows on the two largest retail venues and shrinks on the derivatives-first venue, the new positions look more like directional bets than hedges.

Funding Still Negative: The Short-Squeeze Setup Is Alive

Negative funding at this point of the move is the key tell. Binance charges -0.0064% per eight-hour settlement, MEXC sits at -0.0064%, and only Gate and Bybit are mildly positive at +0.0021% and +0.01%. A market that has risen all day should be paying longs. That it is not means shorts have not covered, and they are the ones who will be forced to buy if price keeps pushing.

HBAR has not shown up on the liquidation leaderboard at all today. Total liquidations across the crypto market reached $418 million in 24 hours with shorts paying 61%, but HBAR-specific wipes stayed small enough to stay off the top-25 list. Low realized liquidation pressure combined with rising OI means leverage is being added without anyone being flushed yet. That is fuel, not fire.

What to Watch: $0.081 Breakout, $0.077 Support

The immediate level is $0.08103, the 24-hour high. A clean break with Binance funding flipping positive would confirm that shorts are being bought out, and the negative funding rate would then act as a tailwind instead of a drag. The downside reference is $0.077, the day's low, which both Binance and OKX agree on. If price loses that, the freshly added $4.5 million of OI on Binance turns vulnerable, and longs would face the liquidation flush that shorts have avoided so far.

Data as of 21:00 Beijing time on Aug 24, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget, KuCoin and other major venues.