Zcash OI Climbs 6.8% as Short Liquidations Shape the Price
Zcash is trading at $1,517.8 after a 3.7% rise, while open interest has expanded 6.8% in 24 hours to $2.81B. That combination points to fresh derivatives participation rather than a purely spot-led move, but the latest positioning is becoming less uniform: the largest venues are reducing exposure over the latest 4 hours even as the broader market remains heavily short on accounts.
Recent market coverage has focused on new exchange access, investment-product interest and a broader revival of privacy-coin attention.
Binance carries the structural weight
Binance remains the dominant OI venue with $746.9M, equal to 26.6% of tracked positions, after an 11.7% 24-hour increase. Bybit holds $267.3M, or 9.5%, but its OI is down 1.2% over the same period. OKX contributes $186.7M and 6.6%, up 6.6%, while Bitget accounts for $165.4M and 5.9%, up 2.0%.
The important split is visible in the shorter window. Binance OI is down 3.6% over 4 hours, OKX is down 6.3%, Bybit is down 7.0%, and Bitget is down 2.9%. In other words, the 24-hour build has not translated into continuous expansion at the core venues. Gate is the exception: its $82.2M OI is only 2.9% of the tracked total, but it has surged 64.5% in 24 hours and 3.0% in 4 hours. That makes Gate an aggressive marginal contributor, not yet the market’s main structural anchor.
Funding is positive, but not broadly extreme
Current funding rates show a mostly positive carrying bias. Binance, Bybit, Bitget and Gate each print 0.0% when rounded to one decimal place, while CoinEx stands out at 0.2%. Coinbase is also positive at 0.0% on the same display basis, whereas Kraken is marginally negative at -0.0%. The spread matters more than the rounded headline: CoinEx is the clear high-funding outlier, while the major venues do not yet show a synchronized premium that would signal universal long overcrowding.
This leaves room for a squeeze in either direction, but the liquidation tape currently favors the upside stress case. In the latest 24 hours, short liquidations reached $7.4M against $2.7M of longs, for $10.1M in total. The 12-hour window shows the same imbalance, with $4.0M of shorts liquidated versus $1.6M of longs. Over 4 hours, however, the pattern flips sharply: longs account for $1.0M against only $45.8K of shorts. That reversal suggests that late buyers are being cleared even while the wider move continues to pressure established shorts.
Accounts are short while takers disagree
The positioning split reinforces the unstable OI structure. On Binance, only 31.5% of tracked accounts are long and 68.5% are short, yet taker flow is 55.9% long versus 44.1% short. OKX accounts are even more short-heavy at 28.1% long and 71.9% short, while its takers remain 39.9% long and 60.1% short. Gate is the extreme case: accounts are 32.5% long and 67.6% short, but takers are just 8.5% long and 91.5% short.
That account-versus-taker divergence means the market is not simply crowded with aggressive longs. Passive or existing account positioning remains short-heavy, while Binance takers are buying into the move. The contradiction can fuel a squeeze if price advances without a rapid OI unwind, but the falling 4-hour OI at Binance, OKX and Bybit warns that some of the earlier leverage is already being removed.
Verdict: The near-term structure remains squeeze-positive above $1,487.2, with $1,532.4 and $1,546.1 as immediate liquidation-linked checkpoints and $1,582.1 as the larger upside stress level. The thesis requires OI to hold above $2.81B while price stays above $1,487.2; a move below $1,487.2 accompanied by OI falling under $2.81B would invalidate the squeeze view and shift the structure toward leverage-driven distribution. Data as of 06:12 Beijing time on Sep 23, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.