Pepe OI Purge Cuts 17.9% as Longs Stay Crowded Across Exchanges
Pepe futures open interest has suffered a broad purge: aggregate OI fell 17.9% in 24 hours to $298.5M, while the token trades at $0.0000043 after a 12.1% daily decline. The key tension is that leverage has been removed, but positioning has not been reset cleanly: accounts remain predominantly long even as active takers lean short.
Recent market coverage has framed Pepe's rebound as a possible squeeze and breakout continuation, but the derivatives tape now points to a more conflicted market. The decline in exposure is substantial enough to cool the rally narrative, yet the remaining longs are still vulnerable if spot fails to stabilize.
Gate led the OI purge
Gate remains the largest visible concentration, holding $111.8M or 37.5% of tracked OI after a 17.6% daily contraction. Bitget carries $34.1M, equal to 11.4%, with OI down 17.2%, while OKX holds $32.7M or 11.0% after the steepest major-venue reduction at 27.9%.
The four-hour figures show that the deleveraging is still active rather than purely a one-off daily reset. Bitget OI dropped 6.4% over that window, compared with 4.1% at OKX and 4.0% at Gate. With these venues accounting for the dominant visible share, the purge has broad market coverage. A bounce that fails to attract fresh exposure could therefore represent short-term covering rather than a durable trend reversal.
Funding stays positive despite the flush
The funding rate map reinforces the risk of crowded longs. Current rates are positive at Bitget at 0.0077%, Gate at 0.0100%, OKX at 0.0100%, and KuCoin at 0.0100%. CoinEx is at 0.0092%, Crypto.com at 0.0098%, and MEXC at 0.0059%. By contrast, Kraken is negative at -0.0007% and WhiteBIT is negative at -0.0170%, showing that the market is not uniformly bullish across venues.
This dispersion matters because positive funding is still being paid in several of the largest liquidity pools even after OI contracted. It suggests that the purge reduced positions but did not eliminate the cost of being long. If price remains weak, residual longs can continue to unwind without requiring a new wave of short selling.
Liquidations confirm long-side stress
The liquidation structure is decisively long-heavy. Over four hours, long liquidations reached $752.7K versus only $8.1K for shorts, with total liquidations at $760.8K. Across 12 hours, longs accounted for $921.2K against $167.9K in shorts. The 24-hour window widened the imbalance further: $4.2M in long liquidations compared with $372.6K in short liquidations, for a $4.5M total.
Positioning data adds a second layer to the signal. The long/short ratio by accounts is 71.7% long on OKX, 76.1% on Bitget, and 68.7% on Gate. But Gate takers are 73.0% short and only 27.0% long. Passive accounts are therefore still leaning into the long side while aggressive traders are selling into the market, a classic divergence during a leverage-clearing phase.
The exclusive read is that Pepe remains in an OI-purge regime, with $0.00000426-$0.0000043 as the immediate price reference and $298.5M as the key OI base. A sustained recovery above $0.0000043 accompanied by OI rebuilding from $298.5M would invalidate the downside continuation view; without that combination, the long-heavy structure leaves another liquidation leg possible.
Data as of 18:12 Beijing time on Sep 24, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.