USELESS +46.8% to $0.101: OI Jumps 137%, Funding Negative

USELESS, the meme token that spent most of August trading below $0.08, jumped 46.8% in the past 24 hours to $0.101. The rally itself is not the whole story. What stands out is how the derivatives market is responding: open interest climbed 137% to $53.4M while funding rates stayed negative on every major venue.

Leverage Builds Fast, Shorts Refuse to Cover

The OI build was broad. Binance added 250% in 24 hours to $14.6M, OKX grew 560% to $6.3M, and Bybit was up 98.7% to $13.8M. Total open interest now sits at $53.4M across 11 exchanges. Liquidations over the same window tell a similar story: USELESS shorts paid roughly $1.24M of the $1.81M wiped out in 24 hours, about 68.6% of the total. New longs are opening into a market that is actively squeezing the bears.

Negative Funding on a 46% Green Candle

Binance funding reads -0.05%, Bybit -0.045%, Bitget -0.08% and Gate -0.037%. Negative funding means short positions are paying longs, and seeing it persist after a 46% daily gain is unusual. In most squeezes, funding flips positive quickly as longs pile in and pay to stay. That has not happened here, which points to one of two things: the rally is being driven by spot demand rather than leveraged longs, or shorts are stubborn enough to keep paying. Either way, the squeeze fuel is still in the tank.

Liquidations Show Many Small Accounts, Not One Whale

None of the USELESS liquidation prints in the last 24 hours exceeded $100K. The move is being carried by a large number of small positions rather than a single large account. That makes the rally harder to pin on one trigger, but it also means the unwind, when it comes, is likely to be spread out instead of a single violent flush.

What Traders Should Watch Now

The setup is textbook squeeze material: rising price, rising open interest, stubborn shorts. But 46% in one day stretches the price far from the 24-hour low of $0.0686, and chasing here carries real risk. The next funding settlement is the tell. If funding flips positive, the squeeze narrative weakens and leveraged longs start paying. If it stays negative while Binance OI keeps climbing, the shorts remain trapped. Watch both prints before adding size.

Data as of 21:13 Beijing time on September 1, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget and other major exchanges.