PENGU Slides 5.5% as $1.3M Long Liquidations Expose Downside
PENGU fell 5.5% to $0.008603, yet open interest remained near $141.9M and 24-hour liquidations reached $1.4M. For Pudgy Penguins, that combination matters: leverage has not fully washed out even as longs absorb most of the forced selling. The immediate setup is therefore a drawdown with residual downside fuel, not a clean reset.
News around the Pudgy Penguins-linked Abstract project has added a negative backdrop for the token, with reports describing a shutdown after substantial losses and a corresponding strain on sentiment.
OI is rising into the decline
The open interest distribution shows where that leverage sits. Binance holds $34.5M, or 24.3% of tracked OI, after a 5.5% 24-hour increase. Gate carries $23.6M, or 16.7%, with OI up 6.5%. Bybit has $20.9M, or 14.7%, but its OI is down 12.8%, while Bitget holds $10.3M, or 7.3%, after a 12.3% increase.
Together, the largest venues show a split positioning response. Binance, Gate and Bitget are adding exposure as price weakens, while Bybit is cutting it sharply. Across the tracked market, OI still rose 0.6% over 24 hours. That is a bearish structural signal when paired with a 5.5% price loss: leverage is being rebuilt or retained on parts of the market instead of being broadly cleared.
Funding is positive, but uneven
The current funding rate also leans against crowded shorts. Binance, Bybit, Bitget and several other venues show 0.005%, while Gate is at 0.0046%. Hyperliquid is lower at 0.00125%, and Paradex is negative at -0.008827%. The most notable outliers are Coinbase at 0.1267% and CoinEx at 0.302044%.
Positive funding across the key high-OI venues means longs are still paying to remain open, even though the token is under pressure. That does not prove a reversal is imminent; instead, it raises the cost of defending long positions. The small negative reading on Paradex shows the market is not uniformly long, but the dominant venue pattern still favors a long-side squeeze risk.
Liquidations confirm a long-side flush
The liquidation structure is decisively one-sided. Over 24 hours, long liquidations totaled $1.3M versus $72.5K for shorts, out of $1.4M overall. The same pattern appears over 12 hours, with $391.9K in longs liquidated against $56.3K in shorts. The most recent windows are smaller: four-hour liquidations reached $14.1K, including $11.2K of longs, while the one-hour window recorded $2.1K of shorts and no longs.
Two Binance events mark the immediate price map. A $154.3K long liquidation occurred at $0.008710, and another worth $117.0K printed at $0.008289. With spot at $0.008603, price sits between those levels, leaving the upper level as the first recovery test and the lower level as the clearer downside liquidation reference.
Positioning data adds an important contradiction. The aggregate account split is 60.8% long, but active takers are only 53.5% long. On Binance specifically, accounts are 48.1% long and 51.9% short. Passive accounts remain more optimistic than the traders currently crossing the spread, so the account-versus-flow divergence still favors defensive interpretation.
Verdict: The bearish drawdown view remains valid below $0.008710 while OI holds around $141.9M or rises, because positive funding and a 60.8% aggregate long account share leave room for another long flush toward $0.008289. A sustained reclaim of $0.008710 together with OI falling below $141.9M would invalidate this downside-continuation view by signaling recovery with leverage being removed rather than added. Data as of 07:09 Beijing time on Oct 8, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.