Sui’s 14.5% OI Surge Tests Whether the $0.7901 Breakout Holds

Sui is testing a derivatives-backed breakout: price reached $0.7901 after gaining 9.2%, while open interest rose 14.5% over 24 hours to $593.2 million. Trading volume also increased 12.3%, suggesting the move has participation behind it rather than being driven by a thin spot push. Yet the 1-hour and 4-hour RSI readings both sit at 74.3, placing the market in an extended short-term condition.

News context: Crypto Briefing reported that Sui and Daya are working toward gas-free stablecoin transfers for users in Africa.

OI expansion is concentrated at the leaders

The open-interest increase is broad but uneven. Binance carries $109.1 million, or 18.4% of tracked SUI OI, after a 14.8% 24-hour increase. Gate is close behind at $107.8 million and 18.2% share, with OI up 10.8%. Bybit holds $73.2 million, representing 12.4%, and added 13.6% in the same period. Bitget contributes $50.8 million, or 8.6%, after a 10.4% rise.

Those four venues account for the most visible concentration among the reported exchanges, and each posted positive daily growth. The shorter horizon is less uniform: Bybit’s OI declined 0.3% over 4 hours while Binance, Gate and Bitget increased 1.2%, 1.6% and 1.1%. That split matters because the breakout is still attracting fresh exposure on several major venues, but one large venue is already showing some intraday position reduction.

Funding confirms bullish pressure, not clean conviction

Current funding rates are positive across most major venues. Binance, Bybit, Bitget, Gate and OKX each show 0.010%, while Coinbase is at 0.003% and Hyperliquid is at 0.00125%. The widest positive reading is CoinEx at 0.750%, whereas EdgeX is negative at -0.005% and several venues, including dYdX, show 0.000%.

The aggregate funding average is 0.0391% on the 8-hour basis, and the futures basis is 0.1%, annualized at 18.4%. This combination says traders are paying to maintain long exposure as price rises. It supports the direction of the breakout, but it also reduces the margin for error: if price stalls while OI remains elevated, funding can become a source of forced unwinding rather than continued momentum.

Short liquidations lead, while accounts crowd long

Liquidation data gives the breakout its clearest confirmation. Over 24 hours, SUI recorded $1.27 million in liquidations, including $1.17 million in shorts against only $103.6 thousand in longs. The imbalance was already visible over 12 hours, when short liquidations reached $926.2 thousand versus $44.6 thousand for longs. Over 4 hours, the same pattern persisted: $169.5 thousand in shorts and $20.7 thousand in longs.

The largest reported event was a $196.0 thousand Binance short liquidation at $0.7856, followed by $124.7 thousand at $0.7512. This shows that the move has already forced bearish positions to cover around the current price zone. However, positioning is now heavily skewed toward long accounts: the aggregate account long share is 75.6%, while the taker long share is 55.6%. Binance takers are only 53.3% long, compared with 68.7% at Gate. The gap between account positioning and active taker flow suggests many traders remain directionally bullish, but immediate market orders are less one-sided than the account headline implies.

Verdict

The preferred read is cautiously bullish while SUI holds above the $0.7856 liquidation level and OI stays above $591.95 million, because rising OI, dominant short liquidations and positive funding still favor continuation. The breakout view is invalidated if price loses $0.7512 while OI falls below $591.95 million, signaling that forced short covering has ended and leveraged demand is retreating. Data as of 20:13 Beijing time on Sep 18, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.