Traders betting on SKR to fall are paying a steep ongoing fee to keep their positions open. Ten consecutive alerts in ten minutes show this cost rapidly increasing.
Imagine SKR is trading near $0.023. Suddenly, a massive crowd of traders arrives all trying to bet that the price will crash. Because almost everyone wants to bet down and few want to bet up, the market becomes severely lopsided.
Between 22:09 and 22:18 UTC, ten consecutive alerts fired. Over this short window, the hourly fee that sellers must pay to stay in the market grew from -0.1081% to -0.1155%, showing that downward bets kept flooding in nonstop.
In perpetual markets, a regular fee called the funding rate balances buyers and sellers. When it turns heavily negative, it means sellers betting on a drop are actively paying cash directly to buyers just to keep their positions alive.
One alert is a snapshot, but ten alerts in ten minutes signal an entrenched trend. When negative funding gets this extreme and persists, sellers bleed money every hour just holding on, creating a crowded and fragile position.
Heavy negative funding does not guarantee the price will drop. If price ticks upward even slightly, paying sellers may rush to close their bets all at once, sparking a rapid price surge known as a short squeeze.
Do not think negative funding guarantees a price crash. Think of it as a crowded room where sellers are paying an entrance fee every hour, making them vulnerable if the door suddenly swings the other way.