Helium rises 167% in one weekend as short squeeze drives HNT

Helium's HNT token rose as much as 167% over the weekend. HNT reached an intraday high of $0.989. The move followed a Texas Wi-Fi deployment. HNT had traded below $0.30 for most of the summer. The price rose from $0.33 to $0.45 overnight. HNT then reached $0.70 by 09:00 and later rose to $0.9782. Daily trading volume exceeded $110 million. Earlier volume spikes had reached about $45 million. Total trading reached $248.26 million. Helium's total token value was $154.8 million. Coinglass showed that nearly $1.5 million in short positions were liquidated on Sunday. More than $1.6 million in short positions were liquidated across the weekend. Traders betting on a rise lost $196,650. These liquidations forced exchanges to buy HNT at market prices. The funding rate for HNT futures fell below minus 1.2% in a single payment after remaining at zero for eight months. Negative funding meant that traders betting against HNT paid traders betting on it. Open interest rose 197.6% to $13.64 million, its highest level in about a year. New futures contracts replaced some of the positions that were closed. HNT later fell from its $0.989 peak to about $0.88. Only $22,920 in bearish positions closed during the most recent hour, compared with $1.61 million across the day. Traders commonly treat sharply rising open interest during a vertical price move as a warning. They look for open interest to flatten or ease while the price holds. A funding rate moving toward zero would indicate that short positions had been closed or abandoned. Helium has no locked token supply waiting to vest because all HNT minted so far is already trading. Issuance continues toward a 223 million token cap. About 37 million HNT remains to be issued.