Shiba Inu Bounces 5.6% as Longs Flush $58K While Shorts Get Squeezed

Shiba Inu (Shiba Inu) is changing hands at $0.00000507, up 5.6% over the past 24 hours on $46.9M in volume (down 10.4% from the prior day), holding a $2.99B market cap. The bounce is happening even as derivatives data points to a market still working through the effects of a sharp long-side flush earlier in the session, with open interest now split unevenly across venues and funding rates pulling in opposite directions depending on the exchange.

Open Interest: Bitget Leads a $48.1M Market, Coinex Unwinds

Aggregate open interest across 11 tracked venues sits at $48.1M, up 2.4% in the last 24 hours. Bitget carries the largest share at 18.1% ($8.70M, +3.1% 24h), followed by OKX at 11.7% ($5.64M, +0.7%) and Gate at 11.1% ($5.34M, +1.5%). Kraken is a smaller player at 2.1% of the market ($1.02M) but growing the fastest among major venues, up 7.0% in 24 hours. Coinex stands out for the opposite reason: its OI collapsed 47.1% in 24 hours to just $183.2K, now only 0.4% of total open interest — a sign that positions there were forcibly or voluntarily unwound far faster than anywhere else.

Funding Splits: Coinex Pays Shorts to Leave While Others Stay Flat

The funding rate picture confirms Coinex is the outlier. Its rate sits at -0.682% (deeply negative, meaning shorts are paying longs to stay in position there), versus a flat +0.010% on Bitget, OKX, Gate, KuCoin, LBank, MEXC and Bitmex. Kraken (+0.004%) and Whitebit (+0.005%) trade close to neutral, Cryptocom is slightly hotter at +0.013%, Bitfinex tops the list at +0.023%, and dYdX sits at exactly 0%. The blended average funding rate across the market is -0.045% per 8-hour window — mildly negative, but nowhere near as extreme as Coinex's standalone print, which is doing the heavy lifting in dragging the average down.

Liquidations Flip From a Long Flush to a Short Squeeze

Looking at the full 24-hour window, liquidations totaled $87.0K across 48 events, split $58.1K long versus $29.0K short — longs took the bigger hit as SHIB sold off earlier in the day. But the tape has reversed since: the 12-hour window shows $20.7K total ($3.6K long, $17.1K short), the 4-hour window is $7.9K, 100% short-side, and the 1-hour window is $7.6K, also 100% short-side. That progression — long-heavy over 24 hours, short-heavy over the most recent hours — lines up with the 5.6% bounce squeezing traders who shorted into the earlier weakness. It's also consistent with positioning data: 68.1% of accounts and 58.2% of taker volume are currently on the long side of the long/short ratio, meaning most of the crowd is already leaning into the recovery rather than fading it.

News context: U.Today reported that Shiba Inu has lost roughly 78% in one of its most closely watched price-relevant metrics, a bearish signal that stands in contrast to the short-term liquidation-driven bounce.

The short squeeze narrative holds as long as open interest stays above $47M and short liquidations keep outpacing longs on the 1-4 hour windows — that combination favors a push back toward the recent high before sellers regroup. What would flip the call: a slide in aggregate OI back under $45M paired with liquidations rotating back to long-heavy (as they were over the full 24-hour window), which would confirm the bounce was just short covering and that the broader downtrend, evidenced by Coinex's 47.1% OI unwind and its outlier -0.682% funding rate, is reasserting itself. Data as of 21:05 Beijing time on Sep 17, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.