Pepe Funding Turns Negative at 4 Venues as Open Interest Climbs 7.5%

Pepe is showing a sharp derivatives contradiction: tracked open interest has climbed 7.5% in 24 hours to $322.2M, while funding ranges from -0.0084% on Kraken to 0.01% on Bitget, BitMEX, Gate, KuCoin and WhiteBIT. The market is not uniformly bearish, but negative funding at several venues is appearing alongside a heavily long account base and predominantly short taker flow.

News coverage has focused on Pepe’s recent weakness and the possibility that its earlier squeeze has lost momentum, adding a bearish narrative to an already divided derivatives setup.

Open interest is expanding behind Gate

Gate holds the largest tracked share at 35.8%, with $115.3M of Pepe open interest. Its position grew 2.4% over 24 hours and 4.4% over four hours, so the dominant venue is adding exposure without showing the strongest expansion rate. Bitget follows with an 11.9% share and $38.3M in open interest; its 24-hour increase is 11.2%, the fastest growth among the main venues listed. OKX accounts for 10.7%, or $34.4M, after a 4.6% daily increase.

This distribution matters for the funding signal. Expansion is not concentrated only in the venue with the largest book: Bitget is adding exposure quickly, while Gate still controls the biggest pool of contracts. If price stalls, the combination can turn funding pressure into forced positioning, particularly where leverage has built most rapidly.

Funding is negative in pockets, not across the market

The current funding map is fragmented. Kraken is the clearest negative reading at -0.0084%, followed by OKX at -0.0036%, MEXC at -0.0007% and LBank at -0.0006%. By contrast, Bitget, BitMEX, Gate, KuCoin and WhiteBIT each show 0.01%, while CoinEx is at 0.0092% and Crypto.com at 0.0012%. The ticker’s average funding rate is 0.0032%, so the aggregate signal remains slightly positive even though several major venues are negative.

That difference weakens any simple claim that Pepe derivatives are broadly short. Negative funding means short-side positioning is paying the long side at those venues, but positive rates elsewhere show that the market is split rather than uniformly leaning one way. The important risk is therefore cross-venue divergence: traders may be shorting aggressively where funding is negative while longs remain crowded in account statistics.

Accounts are long, active traders are short

Gate’s account long share is 69.9%, against 30.1% short, but its taker flow reverses the picture: only 29.2% of active taker volume is long and 70.8% is short. This is the clearest directional conflict in the dataset. Passive or existing accounts are predominantly long, while traders crossing the book are selling or opening short exposure.

Liquidations show that this conflict is already producing two-sided stress. In the latest hour, long liquidations reached $173.4K versus $5.1K for shorts, indicating an immediate downside flush. Over four hours, however, short liquidations rose to $194.8K against $173.6K of longs. Across 24 hours, the structure was nearly balanced at $452.8K in long liquidations and $439.8K in short liquidations, with $892.6K total.

The largest recorded long liquidation was valued at $132.5K at $0.00000442, while a short liquidation reached $77.6K at $0.00000450. Another long liquidation was recorded at $72.1K at $0.00000451, and a short liquidation at $68.6K at $0.00000457. These levels frame a narrow area where either side can be forced out if momentum accelerates.

Verdict: Pepe’s near-term bias is fragile rather than cleanly bullish: negative funding at Kraken and OKX, a 69.9% account-long crowd, and 70.8% short taker flow point to a potential downside retest, while rising open interest keeps squeeze risk alive. A break below $0.00000442 with open interest holding near or above $322.2M would strengthen the bearish liquidation thesis; a sustained move above $0.00000457 with open interest still above $322.2M would invalidate it by signaling that short pressure is being absorbed.

Data as of 20:16 Beijing time on Sep 25, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.