Pepe Derivatives: 75.1% Long Accounts Meet $276.6M OI Split
Pepe is trading at $0.00000411 after a 4.4% decline, but the sharper signal is underneath: aggregate open interest stands at $276.6M, down 8.9% in 24 hours, while 75.1% of tracked accounts remain long. That combination points to crowded directional conviction meeting a shrinking derivatives base rather than a clean, broad-based bullish reset. Recent market coverage has framed PEPE around fading momentum, broader memecoin selection, and possible prediction-market attention.
Open interest is concentrated but retreating
The positioning risk is not evenly distributed across venues. Gate holds the largest reported share at 35.2%, with $97.2M of open interest, followed by Bitget at 11.7% and $32.4M, and OKX at 10.2% and $28.1M. Gate has been relatively resilient over the shorter window, with open interest up 3.1% in four hours, even as its 24-hour change remains negative at 4.4%. Bitget and OKX have both contracted over four hours, by 1.7% and 1.8%, respectively, while their 24-hour declines are 9.5% and 12.0%.
This creates a venue-level divergence: the largest pool is adding exposure over the shorter window, but two other major pools are still reducing it. The broader ticker snapshot also shows open interest up 0.8% over one hour while remaining down 8.7% over 24 hours. In practical terms, a brief rebuild is appearing inside a market that has already shed substantial leverage.
Funding is split, but the bias is not healthy
The funding rate map reinforces the uneven positioning. Current funding is negative on OKX at -0.0209% and on Bitget at -0.0216%, while MEXC is at -0.0188% and LBank at -0.0187%. By contrast, BitMEX is positive at 0.0100%, WhiteBIT at 0.0100%, CoinEx at 0.0092%, and Kraken at 0.0037%. Gate is only slightly positive at 0.0003%.
The negative readings on several high-visibility venues suggest that traders are paying to maintain short exposure there, even though the account distribution remains heavily long. That is the core positioning divergence: account counts lean long, but funding shows meaningful demand for shorts in parts of the market. It also means a quick upside move could force short covering, while a failure near current levels would leave the long-heavy account base exposed.
Liquidations confirm long-side fragility
The liquidation structure is decisively one-sided. Over 24 hours, long liquidations reached $2.2M compared with $26.3K for shorts. The 12-hour window tells the same story, with $1.8M in long liquidations against $5.3K in short liquidations. Even the shorter windows remain long-dominant: the four-hour total was $4.9K, including $4.6K from longs.
Price-specific events show where the stress has clustered. The largest recorded liquidation was a $187.8K long at $0.00000400, while additional OKX long liquidations were recorded at $0.00000421 and $0.00000416. The account long/short ratio is 3.0 on OKX, with 75.1% long accounts, and 2.8 on Gate, with 73.8% long. Yet Gate’s taker distribution is even more extreme: 97.0% of active takers are long. That gap between already-long accounts and aggressively long takers raises the probability of further downside liquidation if support fails.
Verdict: PEPE’s near-term setup remains bearish-to-unstable while price is below $0.00000421 and open interest stays around or below $276.6M. The critical downside test is $0.00000400, where the largest long liquidation was recorded. This view would be invalidated by a sustained reclaim of $0.00000421 alongside open interest rebuilding above $276.6M and funding moving broadly positive rather than remaining negative on OKX and Bitget. Data as of 18:05 Beijing time on Oct 7, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.