NEAR Protocol: $16.1M Liquidations Expose a Heavy Short Skew

NEAR Protocol is showing a clear liquidation skew: price is $3.758 after a 17.8% move, while $16.1M of positions were liquidated over the latest 24-hour window. Shorts accounted for $13.2M of that total against $2.9M in long liquidations. At the same time, open interest has climbed to $975.4M, up 22.3% in 24 hours. That combination points to a squeeze still carrying momentum, but also to a market that is becoming more crowded and more fragile.

Market coverage has highlighted NEAR’s sharp rally and its push toward higher price levels, but the derivatives data gives a more specific explanation: forced short exits have been a larger part of the move than long-side capitulation.

Position growth is concentrated at major venues

The reported open-interest total is $974.2M, up 22.2% over 24 hours. Bybit holds the largest listed share at 20.8%, with $202.4M and a 25.3% daily increase. Binance follows with 19.8% and $192.8M, up 19.3%. Bitget represents 6.4% with $62.4M, rising 18.1%, while OKX contributes 5.3% and $51.1M after a 15.9% increase.

The distribution matters for liquidation risk. Bybit combines the largest listed share with the fastest growth among the biggest venues, while Binance adds another large block of exposure. The one-hour changes remain positive at 3.2% on Bybit, 3.9% on Binance, 4.0% on Bitget and 3.1% on OKX. In other words, the squeeze has not simply closed positions; fresh leverage has been added into the advance.

Funding is positive, but the spread is widening

Funding is broadly positive across the major venues, with Binance, Bybit, Bitget, OKX and Gate each at 0.0% when rounded to one decimal place. The more revealing outliers are Lighter at 0.1%, CoinEx at 0.0%, and Hyperliquid at 0.0%, while Bitfinex and Kraken are slightly negative at -0.0%. The displayed funding average is also positive, indicating that longs are paying to maintain exposure, even though the rounded rate remains 0.0%.

This is not yet a uniform funding blowout. Instead, it is a fragmented premium: some venues are charging meaningfully more for long leverage, while others remain close to flat. That reduces the strength of a simple overbought signal, but it also means a renewed upside push could force another wave of short covering before long positioning becomes the dominant liquidation source.

Liquidations and positioning disagree at the margin

The liquidation windows show the short side absorbing the stress. In one hour, shorts lost $65.5K versus $8.7K for longs. Over four hours, the split was $321.2K short liquidations against $60.5K long liquidations. Over 12 hours, shorts reached $5.1M compared with $1.7M for longs. The largest listed event was a $992.3K Hyperliquid short liquidation at $3.2136, followed by a $959.4K short liquidation at $3.7024. OKX also recorded short liquidations at $3.4320 and $3.5300, while Bybit showed a $379.2K event at $3.7920.

The account-versus-taker split adds an important warning. Aggregate accounts are 57.3% long, but takers are 64.5% long, showing that active market orders are more aggressively bullish than the broader account population. Binance accounts are 59.5% long while Binance takers are only 51.1% long; Bybit accounts are 57.3% long. Gate is the extreme case, with accounts almost balanced at 50.7% long but takers 91.5% long. This suggests immediate buying pressure is strong, yet it is not evenly distributed across venues.

Verdict: The near-term bias remains squeeze-positive while NEAR holds $3.7024, with $3.7920 the next data-defined pressure point and $975.4M the leverage pool that can amplify either move. The view is invalidated if price loses $3.7024 while open interest remains elevated near $975.4M, because that would turn trapped shorts into a potential long-liquidation cascade rather than a continuation signal. Data as of 09:05 Beijing time on Sep 19, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.