Pepe Open Interest Hits $258.6M as Gate Leads With 38.1% Share
Pepe derivatives open interest stands at $258.6M, up 1.1% over 24 hours, while trading volume jumped 73.6% to $235.1M. That combination points to fresh participation rather than a purely passive buildup, but the shorter-term tape is less aggressive: open interest fell 0.5% over the latest hour. The market is expanding on a daily view while cooling at the margin.
A recent technical market view also describes PEPE as stuck between weak momentum and a neutral-to-firm oscillator backdrop, leaving traders focused on a clear upside trigger rather than chasing the current move.
Gate concentrates the OI surge
The exchange split makes the buildup uneven. Gate carries $98.3M, or 38.1% of tracked open interest, and its position increased 3.2% in 24 hours. Bitget follows with $29.7M and an 11.5% share after a 1.1% daily increase, while OKX holds $25.5M, or 9.9%, after a smaller 0.7% rise. These three venues account for the meaningful concentration in the available exchange breakdown.
However, the latest four-hour changes are negative across all three: Gate declined 1.1%, Bitget dropped 7.1%, and OKX slipped 3.1%. This creates an important distinction for the open interest surge thesis. The daily increase is real, but recent positioning has been trimmed, especially on Bitget. Unless that four-hour contraction reverses, the current structure looks more like a leveraged build that is pausing than a clean acceleration.
Positive funding meets long-heavy liquidations
The funding rate is positive across most major venues. Bitget, BitMEX, Gate, KuCoin, LBank, MEXC, OKX and WhiteBIT each show 0.01%, while Kraken is lower at 0.0068%. Crypto.com is slightly higher at 0.0101%, and both Bitfinex and dYdX are at 0%. The broad positive reading means long holders are paying to maintain exposure, reinforcing the risk of a crowded upside trade rather than confirming a breakout.
Liquidation data supports that warning. Over 24 hours, long liquidations reached $325.3K versus $296.4K for shorts, for a total of $621.7K. The imbalance is much sharper in the shorter windows: the latest hour recorded $1.3K of long liquidations and no short liquidations, while the four-hour window showed $207.6K of longs and no shorts. Over 12 hours, the structure flipped toward shorts, with $295.1K of short liquidations against $208.5K of longs. The largest listed long events clustered at $0.00000414 and $0.00000416, showing where downside pressure has already forced exits.
Positioning is bullish, but not unified
The aggregate long/short ratio shows 73.1% of accounts long, while the active-flow gauge is only 58.7% long. Venue snapshots are also strongly tilted: OKX accounts are 74.2% long, Gate accounts are 68.8% long, and Gate takers are 73.5% long. The contrast between the broad account reading and the lower aggregate taker figure suggests that many traders are holding directional longs, but recent executed flow is less one-sided than the headline account bias implies.
Verdict: PEPE remains vulnerable to a long-side reset while price is below the $0.00000421 liquidation area and open interest is near $258.6M, with $0.00000414 acting as the first stress level. The view would be invalidated by a sustained move above $0.00000421 accompanied by open interest rising beyond $258.6M, especially if Gate's four-hour contraction reverses. Data as of 06:12 Beijing time on Oct 12, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.