Solana at $116.84 as $4.96B OI Meets Broad Negative Funding

Solana is trading at $116.84 with total open interest near $4.96B, while the average funding rate is negative and the futures basis sits at -0.1%. The setup is not a simple bearish signal: accounts remain net long, yet active takers are selling into the market, and the latest liquidation flow shows that shorts have recently carried more leverage through the rebound. Market backdrop includes reports that tokenized-equity activity and DeFi integrations are expanding around Solana, while fee and burn comparisons remain mixed.

OI is concentrated, but not uniformly expanding

The largest SOL derivatives footprint is on Binance, with $929.8M of OI and an 18.8% share. Its OI rose 1.0% over the latest day but fell 0.6% over the latest four hours, suggesting that some leverage was reduced into the current price rather than added continuously. Gate follows with $772.6M, or 15.6% of tracked OI; its daily OI declined 1.7%, even as its latest four-hour reading increased 0.9%. Bybit holds $675.2M and a 13.6% share, with daily OI up 2.0% but four-hour OI down 0.9%.

That combination matters for a negative-funding thesis. The total OI change over the day is only 0.0%, so the market is not showing broad leverage growth. Instead, exposure is rotating between venues. Bitget added 2.3% daily OI to $466.1M, while OKX shed 3.5% to $336.2M. A crowded funding structure without strong aggregate OI expansion can unwind quickly if spot momentum fades, but it can also fuel a squeeze when shorts are forced to cover.

Funding is negative across key venues

Funding is broadly below zero across the most important books. Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget and Gate all show negative current rates, each rounding to -0.0% at one decimal precision. Bitget is the most negative among these large venues, while Gate is also more negative than Binance and OKX on the underlying reading. The broadest outlier is CoinEx at -0.6%, whereas BitMEX and WhiteBIT are positive at 0.0% after one-decimal rounding. This dispersion says the negative carry is real but uneven rather than synchronized across every venue.

The wider derivatives curve reinforces the pressure: SOL basis is -0.1%, equivalent to an annualized -21.9%. Traders are therefore paying or receiving carry in a market where forward pricing is below spot. Negative funding can support a bullish contrarian trade when shorts become overextended, but the negative basis warns that demand for leveraged long exposure is not strong enough to lift the entire curve.

Positioning disagrees with active order flow

The account picture is decisively long. Overall, 65.9% of tracked accounts are long, while the account ratio on Binance is 64.3% long, OKX is 61.7%, Bybit is 69.9%, Bitget is 75.5%, and Gate is 57.9%. Yet the long/short ratio based on taker flow is only 44.0% long overall. Takers are therefore leaning short even as a large majority of accounts retain long exposure.

The venue-level taker data makes the divergence sharper: Binance is 28.4% long versus 71.6% short, OKX is 43.3% versus 56.7%, and Gate is 24.9% versus 75.1%. This is a classic positioning split. Passive or existing accounts are long, but the traders initiating current transactions are selling. That flow can either build the fuel for a short squeeze or confirm that longs are distributing into strength.

Liquidation data currently favors the squeeze interpretation, but only over the shorter window. In the latest four hours, short liquidations reached $143.2K against $46.3K for longs. Over twelve hours, shorts lost $6.0M while longs lost $1.9M. Over the full day, however, the structure is nearly balanced: $6.7M in short liquidations versus $5.9M in long liquidations, from total liquidations of $12.6M. The largest recorded event was a $979.7K short liquidation at $117.85, while major long liquidations clustered around $113.43 to $114.46.

Verdict: The negative-funding bias remains valid while SOL holds above the $113.43-$114.46 liquidation cluster and OI stays near $4.96B without a fresh long buildup. A move through $117.85 accompanied by expanding OI would invalidate the bearish-carry view and confirm that short positioning is being squeezed. Conversely, a break below $113.43 with OI holding near $4.96B would favor another long-liquidation wave. Data as of 06:05 Beijing time on Sep 25, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.