Over ten minutes, traders crowded heavily into short bets on SKR, pushing the hourly fee that short sellers pay to buyers down from -0.1869% to -0.1968%.
Imagine SKR is trading around $0.017. Suddenly, a large wave of traders enters the market to bet that the price will decline, creating a severe imbalance between buyers and sellers.
Across an eight-minute stretch, a recurring balancing fee dropped continuously from -0.1869% to -0.1968% per hour, even as the token price stayed steady between $0.0168 and $0.0172.
This mechanism is called the funding rate. When too many traders bet downward, they must pay a direct cash fee to the minority of traders betting upward to keep the market balanced.
Eleven consecutive alerts in under ten minutes show that bearish positioning is snowballing. Traders are accepting steeper and steeper hourly penalties just to keep their downward bets open.
This does not guarantee the price will fall. When bets are heavily one-sided, even a tiny rise in price can force short sellers to close rapidly, triggering a sharp and sudden upward squeeze.
Don't think negative funding means the asset is guaranteed to crash. Think of it as a crowded room all leaning in one direction, where any unexpected bump could cause a chaotic scramble for the exit.