Solana OI Jumps 10.0% as $5.4B of Positions Chase the Rally
Solana is trading at $119.76 after open interest climbed to $5.4B, up 10.0% over 24 hours. That expansion arrived alongside an 8.1% price gain and an 87.8% increase in volume, making the move more than a simple spot rebound: leverage is being added as the market advances. Recent coverage has focused on ecosystem migrations toward Solana and broader rotation into SOL as its market strength improves.
Where the OI surge is concentrated
The largest share sits on Binance at $984.5M, or 18.2% of tracked SOL open interest, with its exposure up 11.2% in 24 hours. Gate follows with $871.4M and a 16.1% share after a 12.0% increase. Bybit holds $833.1M, or 15.4%, but its 16.0% rise is the fastest among the largest venues. Bitget contributes $498.5M, or 9.2%, after a more moderate 6.9% gain.
This distribution matters because the surge is not isolated to one venue. Binance, Gate and Bybit together carry a substantial portion of the tracked positioning, while Bybit’s stronger rate of growth shows that leverage is still chasing the upside rather than merely being carried by older positions. The four-hour changes remain positive across these venues, ranging from 0.7% on Bitget to 2.8% on Binance.
Funding is positive, but not uniformly aggressive
The funding rate picture is broadly positive across the main exchanges, though one-sided enthusiasm is not uniform. Binance, Bybit and Bitget each show 0.0% after one-decimal rounding, while Gate also rounds to 0.0%. CoinEx is the clear outlier at -0.7%, pointing to a small venue where shorts are still paying longs rather than the reverse.
That contrast makes the OI expansion more important than the headline funding signal. Rising OI combined with mostly positive funding indicates that long demand is supporting the trend, but the absence of a visibly large rounded funding premium on the principal venues suggests the leverage build has not yet reached an extreme carry cost. The aggregate basis remains deeply negative at -0.0% after rounding, or -15.3% annualized, which also argues against treating the rally as a clean, fully priced futures-led advance.
Short squeezes meet long-heavy positioning
The liquidation structure is decisively bearish for trapped shorts. Over 24 hours, total SOL liquidations reached $43.8M, including $39.6M in shorts versus $4.2M in longs. The imbalance was even sharper over four hours: $5.4M in short liquidations compared with $185.7K in longs. In the latest hour, shorts still led at $197.5K against $74.1K.
The largest recorded event was a Binance SOLUSDT short liquidation worth $4.8M at $121.10, followed by a $1.5M SOLUSDC short liquidation at $121.04. Those levels show that the squeeze has already reached above the current market, but the liquidation map also includes a $981.2K short event at $115.88 and a $808.4K event at $117.59, leaving both continuation and retracement reference points.
Positioning adds a warning beneath the bullish tape. The long/short ratio shows 64.5% of accounts long overall, while active takers are only 51.4% long. On Bybit, accounts are 68.4% long, and Bitget is even more crowded at 74.9% long; yet Gate takers are 58.5% short. This account-versus-execution gap suggests passive traders are leaning bullish while some active flow is still selling into strength.
Verdict
The exclusive read is cautiously bullish on squeeze continuation while SOL holds $119.76 and total open interest stays around or above $5.4B. A push through the $121.10 liquidation zone would reinforce the upside case; the view is invalidated if price loses $115.88 while OI retreats below $5.4B, signaling that forced short covering has given way to leverage unwinding. Data as of 07:05 Beijing time on Sep 22, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.