Solana Funding Turns Negative as $5.5B OI Meets 63.6% Long Accounts

Solana is trading at $121.66 with an average 8-hour funding rate of -0.022896%, while open interest remains near $5.5B and 63.6% of accounts are long. That combination is the key hotspot: leverage is still substantial, but longs are paying less—or, depending on venue mechanics, shorts are receiving funding—as the market absorbs a crowded directional bias. Recent coverage has centered on SOL price targets, token selling and network catalysts, but derivatives positioning supplies the cleaner near-term signal.

Open interest is concentrated but recently softer

The largest visible open-interest share sits on Binance at $1.0B, or 18.5% of the tracked total, followed by Gate at $878.3M and 16.0%, Bybit at $862.4M and 15.7%, and Bitget at $494.5M and 9.0%. The concentration matters because three of those major pools have contracted over the past 24 hours: Binance fell 0.7%, Bybit dropped 1.6%, while Gate rose 0.6% and Bitget added 2.0%. The shorter four-hour window is more consistent: Binance, OKX, Bybit, Bitget and Gate all declined, with Binance down 3.0% and OKX down 2.1%.

Across the tracked venues, total open interest is up 2.0% over 24 hours, but the exchange-level four-hour retreat suggests that some recent leverage is being removed rather than aggressively added at current prices. This is a fragile backdrop for a market still carrying a large long-account majority.

Funding is negative on core venues, not everywhere

The funding rate is notably uneven. OKX shows -0.004324%, Gate -0.0032%, Bitget -0.0028% and Binance -0.002658%. By contrast, Bybit is positive at 0.005989%, while Lighter is at 0.0064% and Paradex at 0.005848%. This spread says the bearish funding signal is strongest across several large venues, but it is not a universal liquidation-style washout. Traders are paying to maintain exposure in some books even as other books price a short-side advantage.

The negative average therefore reads less like a clean reversal call and more like a warning about positioning quality. If price remains stable while funding stays negative, the market may be absorbing shorts without forcing a broad unwind. If price slips and open interest remains elevated, however, the same structure can turn into a long-deleveraging cycle.

Liquidations expose the crowded-long fault line

The liquidation windows show a sharp change in structure. In the past hour, long liquidations reached $1.5M versus $0.2M for shorts; over four hours, longs accounted for $2.1M against $0.5M for shorts. The 12-hour split remains similarly long-heavy at $4.5M versus $1.4M. Yet the full 24-hour picture reverses: short liquidations reached $12.6M, compared with $5.6M for longs, for total liquidations of $18.2M.

That reversal aligns with the long/short ratio and taker divergence. Account positioning is long-heavy on Binance at 62.3%, OKX at 60.8%, Bybit at 68.7%, Bitget at 73.0% and Gate at 54.2%. Active takers are more defensive on OKX, where only 37.2% are long, and Gate, where 35.0% are long; Binance takers are closer to balanced at 53.6% long. In other words, passive account positioning remains crowded long while some aggressive flow is selling into the market.

Verdict: The near-term bias stays negative while SOL trades below the $122.43 and $122.90 long-liquidation levels, with open interest near $5.5B and core-venue funding below zero. A sustained move above $123.62, accompanied by open interest holding above $5.5B and funding flipping positive across the major venues, would invalidate this bearish crowded-long view. Data as of 07:05 Beijing time on Sep 28, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.