SKHY Perp +8% to $176: OI Up 22.9%, Funding Still Negative

SKHY perpetuals push higher while shorts keep paying

SKHY perpetual contracts rose about 8% to $175.9 over the past 24 hours, even as most crypto majors pulled back. Binance quoted $175.92 and OKX $175.88 at the same moment, with the 24-hour range stretching from $162.3 to $177.5. Volume reached roughly $1.03 billion, a sign that this move is being traded rather than just quoted.

What stands out is the open interest picture. Total OI across venues climbed 22.9% to $77.7 million, and the increase did not stop in the most recent four-hour window. OKX added 18.1%, Bitget 18.4% and Gate 17.4% over that short stretch, which points to fresh positioning entering the market instead of a short squeeze that simply closes out old trades.

Negative funding with a rising price is an unusual mix

Funding rates tell the other side of the story. Binance shows -0.0263%, Bybit -0.0237%, Bitget -0.0308% and Gate -0.0169%, with the OI-weighted average at roughly -0.0235%. In simple terms, shorts are paying longs to keep their positions open, yet the price keeps climbing anyway.

That combination typically means one of two things: either spot buyers are driving the move and leveraged shorts are reluctant to give up, or the funding print is about to flip once the squeeze accelerates. For traders, the asymmetry matters more than the direction call, because a negative funding rate acts as a cushion for longs and a slow bleed for anyone shorting into strength.

Venue split shows where the conviction sits

Gate holds the largest slice of SKHY open interest at $22.4 million, roughly 29% of the total, followed by OKX at $22.2 million and Bitget at $18.6 million. Binance does not list this perpetual, so the flow is concentrated on the venues that do. The 24-hour changes show OKX and Bitget leading the build at +33.7% and +32.4%, while Gate rose a more modest 21.6%.

For anyone following SK Hynix-linked products, the practical takeaway is to watch the funding rate at the next settlement. If the price stalls while funding stays negative, the setup becomes less clean. If OI keeps climbing through another negative funding cycle, the squeeze case gets stronger and a funding flip to positive would confirm it.

What to watch next

The immediate risk is a pullback toward the $170 level, where the 24-hour low sits well below at $162.3 but recent buying emerged near $168-170. A break above $177.5 on rising OI would open the door to retesting the highs seen on SKHYNIX-linked products earlier in the session. On the flip side, a drop back below $170 with OI starting to shrink would suggest the fresh longs are giving up and the negative funding is doing its work.

Data as of 04:20 Beijing time on September 5, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, KuCoin and other major exchanges.