SEI OI +24% to $49.8M: MEXC Adds 83%, Funding Cool

SEI Open Interest Jumps 24% to $49.8M

SEI futures positioning is building fast. Total open interest across 18 venues reached $49.8 million, up 24.2% in 24 hours, while the spot price moved just 3.2% higher to $0.0483, with Binance at $0.04834 and OKX at $0.04829. The gap between the price move and the OI move is the real story here. Most of the growth did not come from forced liquidations. The token does not even appear in the top liquidated coins over the past day, so the build is coming from new entries rather than squeezed-out shorts reloading.

MEXC Carries the Build: +83% in a Day

The single biggest driver is MEXC, whose positions grew 83.2% in 24 hours to $15.7 million, now 31.5% of the total market. KuCoin added 16.3% to $4.7 million, and Hyperliquid rose 34.5% to $2.0 million. The two largest venues were more cautious. Binance added only 3.8% to $8.1 million, and Bybit 9.9% to $8.2 million. Leverage is being concentrated on a few mid-tier venues, with MEXC alone holding nearly a third of all open interest in the asset.

Funding Rates Say This Is Not a Squeeze

Funding across major venues is close to zero. Binance, OKX and Bybit all sit at 0.01% per 8 hours, and Hyperliquid is slightly negative at -0.0098%. When a rally is driven by short liquidations, funding typically spikes positive as longs crowd in. That has not happened here. Longs pay almost nothing to hold the position, a quieter kind of build than the ZEC or STX moves earlier in the week, where short liquidations were the engine.

What to Watch Next

The key risk is concentration. When one venue holds 31.5% of open interest, its margin rules and liquidation cascades matter more than usual. If SEI price stalls while OI keeps climbing, the new longs become a liability. If trading volume follows the OI growth, the build turns into a trend with real participation. For now this reads as leverage rebuilding ahead of a move, not proof that the move has already happened. Watch whether Binance and Bybit start adding at a similar pace; that would show conviction spreading beyond a single venue.

Data as of 14:37 Beijing time on Aug 25, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget, MEXC, KuCoin and other major venues.