coindesk.com
The native token of decentralized exchange (DEX) aggregator 1inch (1INCH) rose by more than 58% before receding on Monday as trading volume hit $597 million, its highest level since October, 2021.
Coupled with a spike in trading volume, $3.37 million in leveraged 1inch short positions on have been liquidated over the past 24-hours, according to CoinGlass.
Whilst there is no immediate news catalyst for the move, 1inch's rally appears to be continuing the uptrend that XRP set after it claimed a legal victory against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week. XRP rose by 102% in one day, prompting further moves in assets like solana (SOL), cardano (ADA) and polygon (MATIC).
The open interest, which measures the nominal amount of open derivatives positions, has risen from $14 million to $125 million across 1inch trading pairs, according to Coinalyze, suggesting that the rally has been spurred by futures markets.
This creates a fragile market dynamic as market depth, a metric used to assess liquidity over a 2% spread, remains relatively low compared to trading volume. Buy-side market depth of 1inch on Binance is currently $226,272, according to CoinMarketCap. Spot sellers can capitalize on the leveraged trading activity to prompt a cascade of long position liquidations.
One particular 1inch investor appears to be deploying that trading strategy, with blockchain sleuth lookonchain noting that an investor sent 7 million tokens worth $3.7 million to Binance with price proceeding to fall by 4.4% in the following minutes.
1inch is currently trading at $0.505, it remains up by 23.8% in the past 24-hours despite losing some of its gains on Monday morning. Between 9:00am UTC on Sunday and 9:00am UTC on Monday, 1inch was up 58.26%, according to TradingView.