COAI liquidations wipe out shorts: -1.00 imbalance over 24h

COAI presents a paradox: while its funding rate of 10.95% appears healthy on the surface, its placement at the 1 percentile of its 90-day distribution reveals a market structure that is inverted compared to its own recent history. Shorts are accumulating leverage faster than longs, and the cost of carrying short positions has fallen to historically suppressed levels within this three-month window. This combination, paired with a leverage risk score of 41, suggests positioning is not yet acutely fragile—but the directional imbalance warrants close monitoring.

Key takeaways

• Funding rate of 10.95% APR is positive (longs pay shorts), yet sits at the 1 percentile of the last 90 days, meaning current conditions are near the cheapest for shorts in recent memory.
• Open interest stands at $10.4M with a +1.5% rise over 24 hours, indicating modest leverage building despite already-tight shorts positioning.
• Liquidation imbalance of -1.00 over 24 hours shows exclusive short liquidations, reinforcing that shorts hold the majority of fragile leverage.
• Leverage risk score of 41 remains moderate, not yet elevated, but the structural skew toward shorts positions the market for potential reversal if longs begin to accumulate.

Funding tells a story of shorts in control

The 10.95% funding rate on COAI is positive, meaning long-position holders are paying shorts to hold their positions. Ordinarily, a double-digit annualized funding rate signals crowding and leverage concentration among longs. However, context is everything: this same rate ranks at the 1 percentile of the trailing 90-day band. In other words, funding has rarely been this low for holders of short positions; shorts are essentially being paid to carry their bets at a bargain rate compared to the recent past.

A 1 percentile funding position means shorts are cheaper than at any point in the last three months—they control the market.

This inversion is significant. Rather than a traditional long-squeeze scenario (high funding, longs in trouble), COAI is exhibiting the reverse: shorts have accumulated enough leverage that the marginal cost of their positions has eroded. When funding normalizes or reverses, shorts will face the mechanical pain of paying longs to stay short. For now, they occupy the privileged side.

Open interest momentum amid short dominance

The open interest in COAI stands at $10.4M, a relatively modest absolute size. Over the past 24 hours, OI has grown by +1.5%, a gentle uptick. The seven-day change is reported as unavailable, so the trajectory over a broader window cannot be assessed. What the daily data reveals is that despite the short-heavy structure, some fresh leverage is entering the market—likely shorts adding to their positions or cautious longs testing the waters.

This small positive momentum is not aggressive, but it is meaningful in conjunction with the funding signal. Shorts are not capitulating; they are marginalizing their costs by adding tiny increments while longs remain hesitant. The absence of a sharp OI decline suggests shorts have not yet been forced to unwind, and the modest +1.5% growth implies the short build is continuing at a slow burn rather than explosive velocity.

Liquidation skew reveals who is fragile

The liquidation imbalance over the last 24 hours is -1.00, a stark figure. A reading of -1.00 means 100% of liquidations in that window were shorts—no longs were liquidated at all. This is not marginal imbalance; it is categorical. Shorts are the vulnerable cohort carrying the most fragile leverage, and the market is testing their stops.

This metric directly contradicts the initial impression that longs are in distress. Instead, shorts are the ones bleeding margin. As their positions remain submerged in a market that has moved against them, the mechanical liquidity cascade of short liquidations creates a feedback loop: forced short cover can spike prices, which liquidates more shorts. If this process accelerates, the very cheap funding environment that shorts are now enjoying could invert rapidly.

Leverage risk score: moderate but tilted

The leverage risk score for COAI is 41, a reading that sits in the moderate zone—neither critically elevated nor benign. This composite metric reflects the fact that while leverage is present and positioned directionally, the absolute size of open interest and the distribution of risk has not yet reached fragile extremes. The score aligns with the 24-hour liquidation data: shorts are taking losses, but the market is not in free fall.

The 41 score, however, must be read in light of the funding percentile and the liquidation imbalance. A moderate risk score paired with short-dominated liquidations and historically cheap funding suggests the system is stable now but asymmetrically exposed. The tail risk—a sharp reversal in longs' sentiment or a squeeze event—remains meaningful precisely because shorts are already bleeding.

What would change this read

The current characterization of COAI as short-dominated but moderately leveraged would shift decisively if any of the following occurred: funding rate spiked upward materially above the 1 percentile, signaling longs accumulating faster than shorts and reversing the cost structure; open interest reversed course and declined sharply, indicating shorts unwinding in scale; or the liquidation imbalance swung positive, showing longs beginning to face forced exits. Additionally, data availability for the seven-day OI change would clarify whether the +1.5% daily growth is part of a sustained trend or a single-day bounce. Until one of those conditions manifests, the read remains: shorts are structurally long and exposed, while longs hold the privilege of cheap entry.

*Analysis generated from Quantority's live cross-exchange data pipeline. Descriptive market data, not a trade recommendation.*