Solana Perp OI Breaks $7 Billion, But Funding Remains Sideways

Data shows the Solana perpetual futures Open Interest has surged past $7 billion, a sign that speculative participation in SOL is on the rise.

Solana Perp Open Interest Has Spiked Recently

As pointed out by on-chain analytics firm Glassnode in a new post on X, the Solana Open Interest has climbed up as the SOL price has continued to outperform the market recently. The “Open Interest” here refers to an indicator that keeps track of the total amount of perpetual futures positions related to SOL that are currently open on all derivatives exchanges. The metric takes into account for both short and long contracts.

Now, here is the chart shared by Glassnode that shows the trend in the Solana perpetual futures Open Interest over the past year:

As displayed in the above graph, the Solana Open Interest has observed an increase alongside the asset’s push above the $200 mark and has crossed the $7 billion milestone. “Market participation is clearly expanding,” notes the analytics firm. Historically, speculative activity going up in the sector hasn’t been anything unusual during price rallies, as investors tend to find such periods to be exciting, so they become more prone to making moves.

An excessive surge in the Open Interest, however, is something that can be worth monitoring. This is because new positions generally imply an increase in leverage for the sector, which is something that can make mass liquidation events more likely to take place.

Given that the Solana perpetual futures Open Interest has shot up recently, it’s possible that the price could face instability owing to potential liquidation squeezes. Which way the resulting volatility might take the cryptocurrency in comes down to which side of the market is more dominant.

A metric that can be useful for gauging that is the Funding Rate. This indicator measures the amount of periodic fees that perpetual futures users are exchanging with each other right now. When the Funding Rate is positive, it means the long investors are paying a premium to the short ones in order to hold onto their positions. On the other hand, the metric being below zero suggests bearish bets are more dominant.

As the chart below shows, the Solana Funding Rate has been positive recently, indicating that the investors have been betting on a bullish outcome.

This could imply that a squeeze may be more probable to affect the long side. Interestingly, though, the Funding Rate hasn’t seen any increase alongside the surge in the Open Interest, a sign that new short and long positions have come in equal parts. “This suggests the build-up is not excessively leveraged, leaving scope for further upside if momentum persists,” explains Glassnode.

SOL Price

Solana has pulled away from the rest of the sector during the past week with a surge of almost 7% that has taken its price to $224.