ZEC -7.2% to $764: Hyperliquid OI -17.6%, Funding Holds

ZEC Slides 13% From Its High, Hyperliquid Leads the Exit

ZEC spent the last two sessions as the squeeze trade of the week, then gave most of it back in one move. The coin peaked near $874 on Monday, and by early Wednesday it was trading at $764 on Binance, down 7.2% over 24 hours and roughly 13% off that high. The pullback hit the perp market harder than spot. Open interest across 19 venues fell 9.7% to $1.5B, and Hyperliquid, the venue that had been adding leverage into the squeeze, cut its ZEC book by 17.6% in a single day.

Longs Paid Most of the Wipeout

Liquidation data shows the flush was one-sided. ZEC longs were cleaned for $10.7M in the last 24 hours versus $3.9M for shorts, so about 73% of the $14.6M wiped in ZEC came from the long side. That fits the pattern: the squeeze pushed price up fast, late longs chased it, and the reversal caught them without a cushion. The volume story also cooled, with 24-hour turnover around $4.8B, down from the frenzy levels seen during the breakout.

Funding Stayed Positive Through the Drop

What stands out is funding. ZEC's average funding rate is still about 0.01% per eight hours, with Binance, Bybit, Bitget, Gate, KuCoin and MEXC all printing positive rates. A -13% round trip with funding still positive is not a capitulation; it means leveraged longs have not fully unwound and perp pricing has not flipped to the short side. Hyperliquid's rate sits near 0.0013%, so the sharpest OI cut happened at a venue where leverage was cheapest to hold.

What the Unwind Says Next

The question now is whether this is a reset or the start of a deeper flush. OI is still $1.5B, nearly double where it stood before the squeeze began, so leverage has a long way to fall if longs keep bailing. The exchange split matters too: Binance OI is down 6.4% and Hyperliquid down 17.6%, while Kraken actually added 32% of its small book. For traders, the setup is a classic post-squeeze unwind: watch whether funding rolls negative and whether OI keeps bleeding, because a full return to pre-squeeze positioning usually needs both. Data as of 05:27 Beijing time, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget and other major venues.