ZEC Tops $1,147: Shorts Paid 95% of $37.9M Liq, OI $2.43B
ZEC's breakout above $1,100 turned into a one-sided clearing event on Saturday: short positions absorbed 95% of a $37.9 million liquidation wave in the past 24 hours. Perpetual prices are holding near $1,147 on Binance and $1,146 on OKX, up about 12.7% from the same time yesterday, after the rally tagged a high near $1,185 and then cooled.
Shorts Paid 95% of the $37.9M Wipe
ZEC was the largest liquidation coin in the whole market over 24 hours, ahead of ETH at $29.1 million and BTC at $14.9 million. Of the $37.9 million total, $36.1 million came from short positions, with longs contributing just $1.8 million across roughly 4,600 orders. The pattern is the same one that has defined this move since the coin cleared $1,000: price grinds higher, late shorts pile in at higher levels, and each leg up cleans them out. This round, sellers who opened near $1,100 to $1,160 were the ones paying.
Open Interest Grinds to $2.43B, Venue Race Tight
Total open interest sits at $2.43 billion, up 4.7% in 24 hours. That is slower than the near-30% surge two days ago, but positions are still being added rather than unwound. Hyperliquid holds the top spot with $670 million (27.6%), and Binance is right behind at $653 million (26.9%). The shift to watch is in the last four hours: Binance added open interest at 10.6% versus Hyperliquid's 9.3%, so the exchange lead could flip soon. Bybit is third at $292 million. Leverage is not leaving the tape, which keeps the squeeze setup intact.
ZEC Short Wipes Hit Hyperliquid, Bybit and Binance
The largest single liquidations all landed on shorts. A Hyperliquid position of $2.01 million was closed near $1,077, followed by another $1.45 million wipe on the same venue near $1,138. On Bybit, two orders worth $914,000 and $902,000 were stopped out at $1,166 and $1,167 minutes apart. Binance saw a $899,000 short closed at $1,123 and an $850,000 one at $1,135. The cluster between $1,077 and $1,167 shows how many traders kept selling the rally and kept getting run over.
Funding Is Mixed, Not Panicked
Funding rates tell a balanced story. Binance perps charge longs 0.0056% per eight hours, Bybit 0.01%, and Hyperliquid is close to flat at 0.0012%. On the other side, Bitget sits at -0.0138%, Gate at -0.0037% and Kraken at -0.012%, meaning shorts still get paid on some venues. That split matters because it says the crowd is not uniformly long, so there is no obvious overcrowding signal yet. The risk cuts both ways. Chasing the $1,185 high on leverage is exactly what got today's shorts liquidated, while fading a coin with $2.43 billion in open interest and a tightening venue race means standing in front of momentum. Watch whether funding turns broadly positive on a pullback; that would mark real long conviction rather than another squeeze.
Data as of 04:40 UTC on September 6, covering Binance, OKX, Bybit, Hyperliquid, Gate, Bitget and other major venues.