Traders betting against ZORA paid three consecutive fee spikes above negative 0.05 percent in under five minutes. This shows aggressive selling pressure, but leaves those sellers vulnerable if prices bounce.
Imagine ZORA is trading around $0.0092. A sudden rush of traders all try to bet that the price will fall at the exact same moment, creating an unbalanced pile of downward bets.
Between 23:00 and 23:04 UTC, the cost to bet against ZORA surged past negative 0.05 percent three separate times while the price held steady near $0.0092.
In futures markets, buyers and sellers regularly pay each other a balancing fee called a funding rate. When it turns deeply negative, sellers are paying cash directly to buyers just to keep their positions open.
Think of it like an overcrowded room where too many people want the same exit. To stay by that door, they have to keep paying the people on the other side a fee every hour just to hold their spot.
A single spike might be a brief glitch, but three alerts in under five minutes show sustained conviction. Sellers were so eager to push ZORA down that they willingly accepted an ongoing penalty.