coindesk.com
Dogecoin traders are putting more money behind leveraged bets even as $DOGE struggles near 7 cents, creating a growing mismatch between weak prices and rising risk-taking in the futures market.
Open interest, the value of futures contracts still outstanding, has climbed to about $1.21 billion from roughly $930 million in late June, according to CoinGlass. $DOGE fell almost 3% over the past 24 hours and is down nearly 70% over the past year.
The scale of the speculation is easier to see when measured in coins rather than dollars.
Open interest currently stands at 17.18 billion $DOGE, against 17.78 billion in October 2025, when the token traded near 25 cents. Speculative positioning has almost fully rebuilt in coin terms even though each of those coins is worth less than a third of what it was.
Futures let traders borrow to take a bigger position than their money would otherwise buy. Open interest rising means new leverage is entering the market, though on its own it says nothing about which way those traders are betting.
But the account ratios say plenty. On crypto exchange Binance, more than three accounts held long (or bets on higher prices) $DOGE positions for every one holding a short (bets on lower), and on OKX the ratio was above five to one.
While that does not mean three times as much money is betting on higher prices, as every futures contract has a buyer and a seller, it indicates that more traders are choosing the bullish side while the price keeps sliding.
Those positions become the pressure point if $DOGE slides further, however. A leveraged bet that runs out of collateral gets closed automatically by the exchange, which means selling the position into the market, and a cluster of those closing together adds fresh selling to a market already going down.
$DOGE trades at 7 cents in Asian morning hours Thursday, down 3%, the only major lower while the rest of the market edged up.