NEAR Protocol: $1.38B OI Meets a 63.2% Long Account Bias

NEAR Protocol is trading at $4.938 while its derivatives market sends two different messages. Account positioning is heavily tilted long at 63.2%, but the aggregate taker reading is only 35.4% long. With total open interest at $1.38B and 24-hour liquidations at $12.0M, the setup looks less like broad conviction and more like crowded passive exposure meeting defensive active flow.

Recent coverage says NEAR Intents reported blocking suspicious swaps connected with a major exchange hack, adding a headline risk backdrop without changing the futures data’s central positioning split.

OI is rotating, not expanding evenly

Venue-level open interest shows a clear divergence. Binance holds the largest disclosed share at 18.9%, or $260.7M, and its OI increased 2.4% over 24 hours. Gate carries 14.9%, or $205.7M, after the strongest expansion among the major disclosed venues at 10.5%. Bybit has 13.7%, or $188.7M, but its 24-hour OI fell 5.9%. OKX is smaller at 4.5%, or $61.4M, while still adding 3.6%.

This matters because the total market contracted 0.6% over 24 hours even as Binance, Gate and OKX added exposure. The reduction is therefore concentrated elsewhere, with Bybit’s decline standing out among the larger books. Gate’s increase is especially important: it is large enough to offset some contraction and may represent fresh risk entering a venue where account positioning is already long-biased.

Funding confirms a fragmented long carry

The funding rate distribution is positive on several major venues but far from uniform. Bybit, Bitget and Gate each show a current rate of 0.0100%, while Binance is at 0.002446%. OKX is negative at -0.0040%, and Gate’s displayed basis between funding and broader positioning is notable because its current rate remains positive despite a 58.6% long account share.

Smaller or alternative venues widen the spread further: Lighter is at 0.0400%, while CoinEx is at -0.079487%. These extremes should not be treated as a single market-wide signal. They instead show that the cost of holding a long differs materially by venue, reinforcing the idea that positioning is fragmented rather than synchronized. The ticker’s average eight-hour funding rate is 0.001194%, positive but modest compared with the most expensive venues.

Liquidations reveal where the crowd is vulnerable

The liquidation structure has shifted over time. In the latest hour, long liquidations reached $233.1K against $86.1K for shorts. Across four hours, the split was nearly balanced at $380.4K long versus $370.0K short. Over 12 hours, however, shorts led with $952.7K against $508.7K for longs. The full 24-hour window reverses that picture decisively: $10.7M of longs were liquidated versus $1.3M of shorts.

The largest recorded long liquidation occurred near $4.70360918 and was valued at $1.7M. That level is more useful than a generic support label because it identifies where leveraged long exposure has already been forced out. Yet the recent one-hour imbalance suggests the liquidation process has not fully disappeared; long vulnerability remains active even after the larger 24-hour flush.

The long/short ratio data reinforces the account-versus-taker split. Bitget accounts are 70.9% long, Bybit accounts 63.9% long and Binance accounts 61.5% long. Gate is less stretched at 58.6%. In contrast, Binance takers are 47.8% long and 52.2% short, showing net active selling, while OKX and Gate takers are only modestly long at 53.6% and 52.6%.

Verdict: NEAR remains downside-fragile while the price is below a firm recovery of $4.938 and long accounts stay crowded against cautious taker flow. The key downside level is $4.70360918; a break there with total OI holding above $1,377,129,769 would favor another leverage reset, especially with Binance at $260,747,623.33 and Gate at $205,706,381.77. This view is invalidated if NEAR reclaims $4.938 while OI rises above $1,377,129,769 and the aggregate taker reading improves beyond 35.4% long. Data as of 00:05 Beijing time on Sep 30, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.