SOON Open Interest Jumps 42.0% as $82.4M Stacks Across Venues

SOON is showing a classic leverage expansion: price rose 34.2% while aggregate open interest climbed 42.0% to $82.4M across nine venues. The move is backed by a 122.2% increase in volume, but the positioning data is not uniformly bullish. The key question is whether the new contracts are building a durable trend or creating a crowded reversal setup.

Open interest is concentrated, but broadly expanding

Binance remains the largest venue with $28.7M, or 34.8% of total open interest, after a 50.3% increase over 24 hours. Bitget holds $20.7M, representing 25.1%, and its open interest rose 35.4%. Bybit contributes $12.1M, or 14.7%, following a 54.0% increase, while OKX added the fastest expansion among the major balances at 61.6% to $8.0M and 9.7% share.

This distribution matters because the surge is not confined to one exchange. The four largest venues account for most of the tracked exposure, yet their shorter-term readings have started to diverge: Binance, Bybit and Bitget recorded four-hour declines of 0.3%, 2.7% and 3.4%, while OKX still added 0.2%. That combination points to aggressive accumulation followed by some recent position trimming, rather than a clean, uninterrupted build.

Funding is positive, while positioning remains split

The funding rate tape leans positive across the main venues, but the premium is uneven. Binance is at 0.0% on a one-decimal display, Bitget at 0.1%, and CoinEx at 0.2%, the highest positive reading in the dataset. Bybit and Gate are both at 0.0%, while Kraken is negative at -0.0%. The broad message is that longs are paying on several venues, but funding has not reached a uniformly extreme level.

The open interest and flow signals also disagree with account positioning. Binance accounts are 45.5% long and 54.5% short, while OKX is 32.9% long versus 67.1% short, and Bybit is 33.2% long versus 66.8% short. Bitget is even more short-heavy at 24.0% long and 76.0% short. Yet active takers on Gate were 77.5% long, and Binance takers were almost balanced at 49.9% long versus 50.1% short. In other words, many accounts remain positioned defensively, even as active buying appears on at least one major flow venue.

Liquidations confirm a squeeze-driven move

The liquidation structure shifted materially across the observed windows. In the latest hour, long liquidations reached $94.0K against $8.3K of shorts, suggesting a brief shakeout of late longs. Over four hours, however, short liquidations rose to $267.8K versus $134.9K of longs. The imbalance widened over the full day: short liquidations totaled $1.72M, compared with $623.2K for longs, out of $2.34M overall.

That progression is consistent with a market that first punished crowded longs, then forced shorts to cover as the larger upward move developed. The 12-hour window, with $996.2K in short liquidations against $425.7K in longs, reinforces the view that the open-interest surge has been amplified by a short squeeze. Still, the recent four-hour decline in open interest at several leading venues warns that some of that fuel may already have been consumed.

Verdict: SOON’s constructive setup is valid while price holds $0.4371 and aggregate open interest remains around or above $82.4M, with positive funding contained and short liquidations continuing to exceed long liquidations. A decisive move below $0.4371 alongside open interest falling below $82.4M would invalidate the squeeze-continuation view and signal that leverage is unwinding faster than new demand is arriving.

Data as of 20:21 Beijing time on Sep 30, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.