Short sellers in SKR are paying an unusually steep ongoing fee to keep their positions open, with funding sinking further over a nine-minute stretch.
Imagine SKR is trading at around $0.023. A massive crowd of traders wants to bet that the price will fall, but every trade requires a counterparty willing to take the other side.
Over nine minutes, the price hovered near $0.0228, but the ongoing penalty fee charged to sellers steadily worsened from -0.2211% to -0.2251% across ten straight alerts.
This mechanism is called the funding rate. When downward bets outnumber upward bets, the rate turns negative. To balance the market, sellers must pay cash directly to buyers to keep their trades open.
Seeing this alert fire ten times in nine minutes shows relentless downward pressure. Sellers are so eager to bet against SKR that they are willing to continuously bleed cash to hold their spots.
Negative funding does not guarantee the price will drop. If the price fails to fall fast enough, bleed from these fees can force sellers to rush for the exit, which can actually spark a rapid price spike.
Do not think deeply negative funding means guaranteed profits for sellers. Think of crowded sellers trapped on an expensive ticking clock that could snap back at any moment.