Zcash Open Interest Rockets 53% to $2.89B as Shorts Get Liquidated for $65M

Zcash is up 19.8% over the past 24 hours to $1,363.43, but its derivatives book is moving even faster. Open interest across 18 tracked venues jumped 53.1% in the same window to $2.89B, while trading volume climbed 137.1% to $12.05B, according to CoinVictor derivatives data.

Binance Anchors the Base, OKX Sprints Fastest

Binance still holds the largest slice of ZEC open interest at 26.8% ($773.2M), up 42.7% over 24 hours but a comparatively modest 5.4% in the last four hours — suggesting much of its book was already loaded before the latest leg higher. Bybit follows with 10.2% share ($293.1M, +55.4% 24h), while OKX, despite controlling just 7.0% of total OI ($201.3M), posted the fastest growth among the majors: +72.9% over 24 hours and +20.2% in the last four hours alone. Bitget added 5.6% share ($161.3M, +40.1% 24h), and smaller venue Aster — just 0.8% of total OI at $23.8M — logged the largest 24-hour expansion in the data set at +148.1%, a sign leverage is broadening well beyond the top exchanges.

Funding Stays Negative While Takers Keep Buying

Despite the OI surge, funding hasn't flipped bullish. Rates remain negative across most tracked venues — Binance at -0.0371%, Bybit at -0.0299%, Gate at -0.0579%, Bitget at -0.0666%, and Coinex printing an outlier -0.4278% — with only a few venues like Bitmex (+0.01%) and Whitebit (+0.01%) positive. The blended 8-hour average sits at -0.0436%. Account positioning tells the same story: only 28.1% of Binance accounts are net long (ratio 0.39), 24.8% on OKX (ratio 0.33), and even Bybit, the least skewed major, runs just 41.7% long (ratio 0.72). Yet aggressive taker flow points the other way — Binance's buy/sell split is 59.4% long (ratio 1.46), OKX 55.8% long (ratio 1.26), and Gate 54.3% long (ratio 1.19). Short-heavy accounts getting run over by long-skewed active flow is exactly the mechanic behind a squeeze.

Shorts Take the Brunt of the Liquidation Cascade

That mechanic shows up directly in the liquidation tape. Over the past 24 hours, $72.76M in ZEC positions were force-closed across 10,099 events, with shorts absorbing the overwhelming majority: $64.80M versus just $7.96M on the long side, roughly an 8-to-1 skew. The pace accelerated into the most recent windows — $48.12M in short liquidations against $6.22M for longs over 12 hours, and $4.08M versus $478.8K over the last 4 hours. The single largest print hit on Hyperliquid: one address was liquidated for $7.08M on a SHORT position at $1,363.33, with further forced closures from that and other addresses at $1,336.44, $1,374.50 and $1,345.15 — a tight liquidation cluster sitting right around current spot.

News context: CryptoPotato reported that a large trader had recently opened sizeable short positions across BTC, ETH and Zcash in apparent anticipation of a broader pullback — a bet the current liquidation data shows getting squeezed rather than rewarded so far.

Verdict: as long as funding stays negative and shorts keep absorbing the liquidation flow, the path of least resistance stays higher while price holds the $1,363-$1,375 zone where Hyperliquid's biggest short liquidations fired and OI holds above $2.89B. The setup would invalidate if funding flips positive across a majority of venues while OI simultaneously rolls over, or if price breaks back below the $1,336 print from the Hyperliquid cascade — either would signal the squeeze has already run its course rather than still building. Data as of 12:20 Beijing time on Sep 17, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit and other major venues.