Zcash OI Hits $2.30B as Binance Holds 25.2% Share Amid Deleveraging
Zcash derivatives are showing a large but cooling positioning base: total open interest is $2.30B, down 2.0% over 24 hours, while the coin trades at $1,205.65 after a 1.5% daily gain. The key signal is not a clean bullish buildup. It is a broad deleveraging process with one major venue still adding exposure and a sharp split between account positioning and aggressive taker flow.
Recent market coverage has portrayed ZEC as vulnerable during the broader sell-off, with fund-flow pressure and bearish technical commentary adding to the cautious backdrop.
Binance leads, but its OI is shrinking
Binance controls 25.2% of tracked ZEC OI at $579.1M, making it the market’s main positioning center, yet its OI fell 5.7% over 24 hours and 1.6% over the latest four-hour window. That combination matters: the biggest pool of leverage is being reduced rather than reinforced.
Gate is the notable exception among the largest venues. It holds 13.4% of OI, or $308.1M, and grew 3.4% over 24 hours. However, Gate also slipped 0.9% in the latest four-hour view, suggesting that its daily expansion may have started to lose momentum. Bybit accounts for 7.6% with $173.9M and was almost flat over 24 hours, down just 0.02%, while OKX carries 6.2% and $141.4M after a 2.1% daily decline. The broader message from these leading venues is uneven participation, not synchronized fresh risk.
Funding is positive, but not uniformly crowded
The funding rate remains positive across most major venues, which means longs are generally paying shorts. Binance is at 0.0086%, Bybit at 0.0100%, Gate at 0.0100%, and Bitget at 0.0100%. These readings are elevated relative to OKX at 0.0042% and Hyperliquid at 0.0013%, but they do not show one universal leverage extreme.
One outlier is CoinEx at 0.1651%, far above the main-venue cluster. That rate can signal concentrated long demand or a thinner contract environment, but it should not be treated as representative of the entire ZEC market. The positive funding backdrop therefore supports a mild long-carry bias, while falling aggregate OI says traders are still cutting gross exposure.
Short liquidations lead, while positioning disagrees
The liquidation structure is clearly short-heavy over the full day: $4.75M of shorts were closed against $2.14M of longs, for $6.89M total. The imbalance is even more visible in the latest hour, where shorts accounted for $123.4K versus only $961.34 of longs. Over four hours, however, long liquidations reached $507.1K compared with $202.7K for shorts, showing that the path was not one-way.
Account data also splits by venue. Binance accounts are 43.6% long and 56.4% short, while OKX is 40.8% long and 59.2% short. Bybit reverses that posture at 62.8% long and 37.2% short. The long/short ratio for takers is more contradictory still: Binance takers are 73.4% long, but Gate takers are only 26.7% long, with 73.3% short. The headline account average of 48.8% long and taker reading of 48.0% therefore conceal strong venue-level disagreement.
Verdict: The actionable bias is defensive rather than outright bearish while ZEC remains near $1,205.65 and aggregate OI stays below $2.30B. A move toward the $1,245.86 liquidation level with OI reclaiming and holding above $2.30B would invalidate the deleveraging view and signal renewed upside leverage. Conversely, continued OI contraction led by Binance, especially alongside another break below $1,205.65, would keep downside pressure dominant. Data as of 06:05 Beijing time on Oct 10, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.