SOL +12% to $109: OI +24% to $5.56B, Funding Stays Cold

SOL up 12.4% in 24h, pushing against $110

The token is trading at $108.9, up 12.4% over the last day, with a 24h range of $96.2 to $109.9 on both Binance and OKX. The move has been one-way since the lows: spot volume is running at $4.46B on Binance alone, and the price has retraced the entire drawdown from the $80K BTC top. At this pace SOL is knocking on $110, a level it last touched in mid-August before getting sold back below $100 twice.

What stands out is how the rally is built. Open interest across the top venues rose 24.2% to $5.56B in the same 24 hours, with Binance up 26.5%, Bybit up 31.9% and Gate up 25.4%. That is a large, broad addition of exposure, not a squeeze on one venue. Yet funding rates are basically flat: Binance 0.0045%, Hyperliquid 0.0013%, and several venues are actually negative, including OKX at -0.0031% and Gate at -0.021%.

Shorts paid 89% of the liquidation bill

The liquidation ledger tells the same story from the other side. Over the last 24 hours SOL saw $54.7M in liquidations, and 88.7% of that was shorts, roughly $48.6M, versus only $6.2M in longs. In the last hour the skew is nearly identical: shorts carried $48.6M of the $54.7M total. The largest single position wiped in the window was a short hit at $109.9 on the way up, which is where the high was tagged.

But there is no sign of overheating in the long book. Funding staying near zero or negative while OI climbs 24% means the new exposure is not leverage-heavy longs paying to stay long; it is spot and spot-perp basis demand. When a coin rises on OI growth with cold funding, the move is usually owned by cash buyers rather than borrowed leverage, and it tends to be more durable than a funded squeeze.

Why cold funding matters at a round number

The $110 round trip is the test. Twice this month the token failed at the $100 mark, and each rejection came with long liquidations running hot. This time the setup is inverted: shorts are the ones paying, and the funding curve has not turned positive even as price printed new local highs. For traders watching the level, the practical read is that a break above $110 on continued cold funding would confirm spot-led demand; a spike in funding above 0.05% alongside the break would signal the crowd has arrived and the edge is gone.

For holders, the divergence is a quality check: OI growth without funding heat means the rally is not being subsidized by leverage, which lowers the odds of a violent long-flush retrace. The main risk to watch is a BTC failure below $78K, which would drag SOL regardless of its own book, and a sudden funding flip positive at $110+ would mark late-stage speculation.

The bottom line

SOL is doing something it has not done all month: gaining 12% while funding stays cold and shorts eat the liquidation bill. The market is paying bears for the breakout attempt while refusing to pay bulls to hold it. If $110 breaks with funding still near zero, the next reference points sit around $112 and the August highs near $116. Data as of 04:15 Beijing time, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget and other major venues.