Solana price prediction: OKX open interest up 24 percent as SOL breaks below its 200-day average

Solana trades at around $87 on Monday afternoon, November 9, and the futures market paints a picture that does not match the falling price. At OKX, one of the world's largest derivatives exchanges, open SOL contracts most recently amounted to 4.33 million SOL. Two weeks earlier the figure was 3.49 million SOL, an increase of 24 percent. Over the same period the price fell from $101 to $86. What the data shows: traders opened additional positions into the decline, and most accounts are betting on higher prices. Our assessment follows further down. This leverage makes the $85 level more important than any other number this week.

Where the price could head over a horizon of months is covered in our Solana price prediction. This piece is about the short term: who is using leverage now, where the positions sit and what a break below $85 could trigger. It draws on the publicly available OKX trading statistics and the daily candles from Kraken, both evaluated on Monday at around 15:45 German time.

SOL at $87: first daily close below the 200-day average since August

Sunday marked a turning point for Solana. According to Kraken's daily candles, SOL closed at $86.44 on November 8. The 200-day average, the mean of the closing prices over the past 200 days, stood at $88.99 at that point. The last daily close below it came on August 18, at $77 at the time. Since then Solana had always traded above the line.

On Monday the price moved between $85.05 and $88.37. CoinGecko reported $87.06 in the afternoon, down 2.5 percent over 24 hours and 20.7 percent over 30 days. The all-time high of $293 from January 19, 2025, is 70 percent above today's price. Market capitalisation stands at a little over $51 billion.

The 200-day average is no law of nature. Many funds and trading programmes use it as a filter for the long-term trend, however, and that turns it into a self-fulfilling level. When the price sits below it, some trend followers exit or stop buying. It is precisely in this situation that futures traders are building up their positions.

Solana open interest at OKX: 4.33 million SOL instead of 3.49 million

Open interest counts all futures and perpetual contracts that have not yet been closed. Every contract has a buyer and a seller, so when the number rises, fresh leveraged money is entering the market. OKX reports the figure in dollars. Converted into SOL at the respective daily close, it gives the following series:

• Two weeks ago, price at $101: 3.49 million SOL, worth $353 million
• Ten days ago, price at $96: 3.86 million SOL
• Four days ago, price at $89: 4.06 million SOL
• Most recently, price at $86: 4.33 million SOL, worth $374 million

The dollar value rose by only 6 percent because each individual contract is worth less. The amount of SOL being wagered, by contrast, grew by a quarter. A large share sits in the perpetual contracts against Tether. The SOL-USDT-SWAP contract alone had 3.51 million SOL open on Monday afternoon, around $306 million.

Rising open interest alongside a falling price allows two readings. Either short sellers are opening new bets on further losses, or buyers are trying to catch the bottom with leverage. Two further metrics show which side dominates.

Long-short ratio of 3.59: many accounts are betting on a recovery

OKX publishes daily how many accounts with an open SOL position are long and how many are short. Most recently there were 3.59 long accounts for every short account. Two weeks earlier the ratio stood at 2.92. The number of accounts betting on higher prices has therefore grown during the decline.

What matters is what the metric measures. It counts accounts, not money. An account with 50 SOL counts the same as one with 50,000 SOL. A ratio of 3.59 therefore mainly says that many smaller traders are long. How much capital sits on the other side is revealed by the funding rate.

Funding rate close to zero: big money is not positioned one way

With perpetual contracts, one side pays the other a funding rate every eight hours. The rate keeps the contract price close to the spot price. If the market is predominantly long, buyers pay and the rate rises. At OKX, the rate for SOL-USDT-SWAP averaged 0.0055 percent per eight hours over the last 30 settlements, that is, since October 30. Five of those 30 settlements were negative, meaning short sellers paid.

A rate this close to zero does not fit a market in which capital is clearly on the buy side. Combined with the account ratio, a picture emerges. Many small accounts hold long positions, while fewer, larger addresses together hold a similar amount on the short side. The trading data fits too. According to OKX, aggressive selling slightly outweighed buying on the last full day, at $141 million against $137 million.

Liquidation price at 3x, 5x and 10x leverage: where long positions fall

A liquidation is the forced closure of a leveraged position once the posted collateral can no longer absorb the loss. Anyone going long at $87 can roughly estimate the threshold. Simplified, without fees and with a maintenance margin of one percent, the liquidation price lies:

• at around $59 with three times leverage
• at around $70 with five times leverage
• at around $79 with ten times leverage
• at around $83 with twenty times leverage

The exact threshold depends on the exchange, the position size and the margin type. The order of magnitude, however, shows why the zone around $85 is so sensitive. Positions opened with high leverage between $86 and $92 in recent days have their thresholds just below it. If the price falls through, exchanges sell these positions automatically, and the forced sales push the price down further. Traders call this a liquidation cascade.

Ethereum showed on Sunday how quickly that can happen. According to our report from November 8, long liquidations of more than $343 million cleared the price down to $2,120. On Monday, Solana has so far seen the reverse. Between 10:00 and 15:45 German time, 4,156 SOL of short positions were forcibly closed in the OKX SOL-USDT-SWAP contract, but only 1,179 SOL of long positions.

If you want to trade Solana futures, you will find the providers and their fees in our comparison of perp DEXs. Whether there or on a centralised exchange, the liquidation price appears in the order form before every trade, and it is worth a look before you submit.

Since Sunday: the $85 level has held twice

In our Solana analysis on Sunday, SOL stood at $89.25 and the 200-day average was only just holding. We named $85.02 as the next support. Two things have happened since. The 200-day average has broken on a closing basis. The $85 level, on the other hand, has held. On Sunday the daily low at Kraken was exactly $85.00, on Monday $85.05. Both times the price turned higher afterwards.

What is new is the view of the futures market. On Sunday the focus was staking yield and dilution. Today it is clear that a growing share of trading runs on leverage. That changes the weighting of the levels. A double bottom at $85 is a buy signal as long as it holds. If it breaks, the level no longer stands only for chart technicals but also for a layer of liquidations.

Solana chart: levels between $79 and $96

On the upside, the 200-day average at around $89 is the first hurdle. Only a daily close above it would reverse Sunday's break. Above that lies last week's high of $98 from November 4, with the 20-day average at $97.20 in between. The 50-day average stands at $107.20 and is not a factor for the foreseeable future.

On the downside, three zones count. First, $85, the twice-tested low. Second, the range around $79 to $80, where the liquidation thresholds of this week's positions with ten times leverage lie. Third, the August low. Back then SOL closed between $74.55 and $77 below the 200-day average before the recovery to just under $125 in September began.

Our Solana price prediction: leverage makes the path down steeper

In the editorial team's view, the futures market currently argues for caution rather than a quick bottom. The evidence: 24 percent more open interest measured in SOL against a 15 percent price decline, an account ratio of 3.59 in favour of buyers, a funding rate close to zero and a daily close below the 200-day average. A bottoming process usually looks different. There, open interest falls as leverage is flushed out of the market, and only afterwards do investors buy on the spot market without credit.

On the other side: the double bottom at $85 has held twice, and on Monday more short than long positions were forcibly closed. If the level holds until the Breakpoint conference in London from November 15 to 17, which we reported on on November 4, short sellers could be forced to cover. Leverage would then work in the other direction, and a recovery to the 200-day average at $89 would be the obvious next step. That is a scenario, not a recommendation.

Crypto derivatives in Germany: 2x leverage on CFDs, 25 percent withholding tax

Anyone in Germany using leverage on Solana operates under a different legal framework than when buying SOL itself. Two points are decisive.

Leverage cap for retail investors

For contracts for difference (CFDs) on crypto assets, retail clients in the EU face a maximum leverage of 2 to 1. The cap goes back to a product intervention by the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA, and BaFin has adopted it permanently in Germany. A broker based in the EU may therefore give you no more than twice your stake on a SOL CFD. High leverage such as 10 or 20 is only available from providers outside these rules, with correspondingly weaker protection. You will find regulated providers in our comparison of crypto brokers.

Tax on leveraged gains

For SOL you hold directly, the rules on private disposals apply. After a holding period of one year the gain is tax-free; below that, an exemption limit of €1,000 per year applies. Our page on the crypto holding period summarises the current state of the debate over this rule. Gains from derivatives such as futures, perpetuals and CFDs, by contrast, are treated by the tax authorities as capital income. They are subject to 25 percent withholding tax plus the solidarity surcharge, and there is no holding period. Lawmakers scrapped the former €20,000 cap on offsetting losses from derivatives with the 2024 Annual Tax Act. Losses can therefore once again be offset in full against capital income. Anyone making many leveraged trades will hardly get through a tax return without clean records. The programs in our comparison of crypto tax tools help with that.

Solana leverage: below $85 the tension is released

For the coming days, the situation can be boiled down to one number. As long as SOL closes above $85, a recovery to the 200-day average at $89 remains possible, and the growing short positions become fuel. A daily close below it would bring the thresholds of highly leveraged long positions between $79 and $83 within reach.

1. If you hold SOL without leverage, no liquidation affects you. Check your purchase date instead. If it is less than a year ago, a sale at a profit is taxable. If you want to buy more, compare fees and licences in our exchange comparison.
2. If you trade with leverage, note the liquidation price before every order and set it against the $85 level. Leverage of 3 leaves room to below $60 from an entry around $87; leverage of 20 leaves barely more than $4. Providers and fees are listed in our perp DEX comparison.
3. If you have made gains on derivatives, expect 25 percent withholding tax plus the solidarity surcharge and keep your records. A tool for this can be found in our tax tool comparison.

(As of November 9, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. Leveraged products can lead to the total loss of the capital invested.)