NEAR Protocol OI Purge: $1.23B Open Interest Drops 19.1%
NEAR Protocol is showing a clear leverage purge: price is $4.525, total open interest is $1.23B, and open interest has fallen 19.0% over 24 hours while trading volume rose 55.2%. The immediate signal is not simply weakness; it is a market that has removed a large amount of crowded exposure. Recent coverage has highlighted NEAR’s price momentum, artificial-intelligence integration, cross-chain expansion and growing market rank.
Major venues absorbed the deleveraging
The open-interest decline is broad across the largest reported venues. Binance holds $233.7M, or 19.1% of tracked interest, after a 23.1% 24-hour contraction. Gate carries $174.0M, representing 14.2%, with open interest down 20.6%. Bybit has $163.5M, or 13.3%, after a 22.5% fall, while Bitget holds $71.4M, or 5.8%, following a 12.1% decline.
The short-term tape is less uniform. Binance open interest is down 2.7% over four hours, Bybit is down 3.7%, and Gate is down 1.2%. Bitget, however, is up 0.3% over the same window. That small rebound does not yet offset the wider purge, but it suggests some traders are beginning to rebuild exposure instead of extending the liquidation cascade.
Funding is negative, but uneven
Funding rates reinforce the bearish positioning reset. Bybit is at -0.0136%, OKX at -0.0165%, Binance at -0.0048%, and Gate at +0.0069%. The spread matters: traders holding long exposure are paying on some major venues, while positive funding elsewhere shows that positioning has not become uniformly defensive. Bitget is at +0.0100%, and Aster is also at +0.0100%.
The broader ticker funding average is -0.002139%, while basis is -0.0442% and annualized basis is -16.1%. Together, those readings point to discounted derivatives pricing rather than a clean bullish reset. A negative basis can accompany forced selling, but it can also create the conditions for a rebound if open interest stops falling and funding pressure normalizes.
Liquidations confirm a long-side washout
The liquidation structure is heavily skewed toward longs. Over 24 hours, total liquidations reached $20.7M, including $18.2M in long positions and $2.5M in shorts. The 12-hour window shows the same pattern: $14.3M total, with $13.7M from longs and $611,533.9 from shorts. In four hours, liquidations totaled $1.0M, with $972,433.7 in longs versus $62,614.2 in shorts.
The largest listed event was a Binance NEARUSDT long liquidation worth $438,513.61 at $4.483. Another Binance long liquidation was worth $330,348.37 at $4.661, while Gate recorded a $305,381.77 long liquidation at $4.7367. Those levels map the recent stress zone and leave $4.483 as the clearest nearby downside reference.
Positioning also reveals a split between passive accounts and active flow. Binance accounts are 59.9% long, Bybit accounts 65.6% long, Bitget accounts 63.2% long, and Gate accounts 55.5% long. Yet Binance takers are only 51.4% long, while OKX takers are 47.3% long and Gate takers are 54.5% long. In other words, accounts still lean long, but aggressive traders are closer to balanced or net short. That divergence is consistent with a market where long holders remain exposed while active buyers are no longer overwhelming sellers.
Verdict: The OI-purge view remains bearish-to-neutral while NEAR trades near $4.525, with $4.483 as the key liquidation level and $1.23B as the current open-interest base. The view would be invalidated if price holds above $4.661 while open interest rebuilds above $1.228B; that combination would signal fresh demand rather than another forced unwind. Data as of 09:05 Beijing time on Oct 9, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.