SKR saw an unusually high negative funding rate of about -0.367% hold steady across ten straight minutes, revealing heavy one-sided pressure from traders betting on a price drop.
Imagine SKR is trading around $0.026. Suddenly, a massive crowd of traders arrives all wanting to make the exact same bet: that SKR's price is about to fall.
Because almost everyone wanted to bet on a drop and very few wanted to bet on a rise, the market introduced a steep fee of around -0.367% to encourage balance. This fee stayed locked in place for ten consecutive minutes.
This fee is called the funding rate. When it turns heavily negative, it means sellers are paying cash directly to buyers just to keep their positions open. It acts like a toll that crowded traders pay to the uncrowded side.
A single minute of negative fees can be random noise. But ten alerts in a row at nearly the exact same extreme rate show aggressive, persistent short-selling pressure that refused to back down even while paying a steep penalty.
An extreme negative rate does not guarantee the price will crash. If buyers suddenly step in, those paying the fee may be forced to close out quickly, causing the price to spike upward instead. It could also move sideways.
Do not think negative funding means the coin is doomed to drop. Think of it as an overcrowded room where traders are paying an expensive entry fee to stay inside, making the market unstable in both directions.