NEAR Protocol OI Surges 20.8% as Shorts Face a $4.6M Sweep

NEAR Protocol is showing a classic leverage expansion: price is at $5.32 while total open interest has climbed to $1.54B, up 20.8% over 24 hours. The move has not been a clean bullish accumulation signal, however. The 24-hour liquidation bill reached $5.2M, with $4.6M from shorts against $628.7K from longs, while the one-hour OI change has already slipped 0.7%.

Recent market coverage has described NEAR as resilient during a volatile crypto rebound while also highlighting resistance and a quieter open-interest trend, but the latest aggregate derivatives data now shows a much larger daily leverage build.

Binance leads the OI expansion

Binance carries the largest visible share at $310.1M, or 20.2% of tracked NEAR OI, after a 27.2% daily increase. Gate follows with $216.7M and a 14.1% share, up 20.8%, while Bybit holds $208.1M, or 13.5%, after a 22.6% rise. These three venues alone show that the expansion is broad rather than dependent on a single book.

The shorter horizon is less uniform. Binance OI is still up 0.6% over four hours and Bybit is up 0.3%, but Gate is down 1.4%. OKX, despite a 24.3% daily gain to $67.9M, is down 1.1% over four hours. Bitget shows the same cooling pattern: $88.1M of OI, up 17.8% daily but down 0.5% over four hours. That mix suggests leverage was added aggressively earlier, with some traders now reducing exposure into the current price zone.

Funding is positive, but not uniformly crowded

The average eight-hour funding reading is 0.0% when rounded to one decimal, a mild positive carry that does not by itself confirm an overheated long trade. Most major venues are clustered around 0.0%: Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget and Gate all print 0.0% at one-decimal precision. Coinbase is also 0.0%, while Kraken is 0.0% and Hyperliquid is 0.0%.

The meaningful outliers are on the negative side. CoinEx is at -0.1%, and EdgeX is at -0.0%, contrasting with the broader positive-to-flat group. This dispersion matters because a positive price move with mostly restrained funding can attract fresh leverage without immediately creating a large funding penalty. It also leaves room for short-covering to extend if price pushes higher.

Short liquidations meet a divided tape

Liquidation structure confirms that shorts have been under greater stress. In the latest hour, longs lost $116.6K versus $73.8K for shorts, but the four-hour window reverses the scale only modestly, with $366.3K in long liquidations against $154.9K in shorts. Over 12 hours, short liquidations jump to $2.3M versus $481.4K for longs, and the 24-hour imbalance widens further.

The largest recorded events were short liquidations at $5.18, worth $269.1K, at $5.31 worth $161.1K, and at $5.44 worth $135.5K. Those levels map a clear short-covering path around the current market. Yet the long/short ratio is not uniformly bullish: aggregate account positioning is 49.1% long, while taker positioning is 40.1% long. Binance accounts are nearly even at 50.1% long, but Binance takers are 40.0% long, showing that active market orders lean short. Bybit accounts are 54.5% long, while Gate accounts are only 43.2% long and Gate takers are 31.0% long.

Verdict

The constructive signal is the $1.54B OI base, the 20.8% daily expansion, and the dominance of short liquidations. The risk is that OI has already eased 0.7% in the latest hour and aggressive takers remain short. The key upside test is $5.44, with $5.31 as the immediate pivot and $5.18 as the key liquidation-supported floor. The bullish continuation view is invalidated if NEAR loses $5.18 while OI falls below $1.54B; that combination would turn short-covering into leverage unwinding rather than a sustained breakout.

Data as of 03:05 Beijing time on Oct 11, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.