Cardano’s derivatives market is showing an unusual split: most Binance ADA perpetual accounts remain positioned long even as funding has turned negative across several major exchanges.
At a Nov. 9 snapshot, 65% of Binance ADA perpetual accounts were long, while top traders held about 63% of their position size on the long side. Yet Binance funding stood near -0.0067% per funding period, meaning shorts were paying longs. Binance ADA open interest was approximately $56.2 million at the time.
ADA itself continues trading around the $0.18 region, with CoinMarketCap placing price near $0.18 after a weak start to November.
ADA Funding Reverses From Positive to Negative
The shift becomes clearer when looking across the past week.
On Nov. 2, Binance ADA funding stood at +0.0086%, while price was approximately $0.1938 and open interest totaled $63.5 million. By Nov. 9, funding had flipped to roughly -0.0072%, ADA had fallen to about $0.1747, and open interest had dropped to $55.4 million.
That represents roughly a 9.9% decline in ADA price and a 12.8% contraction in dollar-denominated open interest over the period.
The combination suggests leverage has been leaving the market alongside price weakness rather than expanding aggressively into the decline.
Negative funding does not mean most traders are short. Funding is determined by how perpetual futures trade relative to spot and by each exchange’s funding mechanism. As a result, an exchange can still show more long accounts while negative funding indicates that short-side pressure or a discount in the perpetual contract has become strong enough for shorts to pay longs.
This follows another derivatives signal highlighted by The Crypto Basic, where ADA taker sellers exceeded taker buyers by $116.7 million over 30 days.
Negative Funding Is Widespread Across Exchanges
The bearish funding shift is not isolated to Binance.
A cross-exchange snapshot showed six of nine measured venues with negative ADA funding, compared with only two positive and one neutral. Bybit carried the most negative normalized rate at approximately -0.0113% per eight hours, while Hyperliquid stood near -0.0103%. Binance was around -0.0064% in the same comparison.
The median across the covered venues was -0.0041% per eight hours. This means traders holding short perpetual positions were paying longs across most of the measured market. That can become relevant if price suddenly rebounds, because heavily negative funding can make maintaining shorts more expensive.
However, negative funding by itself does not confirm a bottom or guarantee a short squeeze.