- DOGE traders sat on $132 million in unrealized losses, yet short volumes remained dominant.
- Whale-driven accumulation has slowed, leaving retail traders to battle out the current directional pressure.
Dogecoin [DOGE] saw barely any movement on the surface on the 30th of June, but underneath, tension brewed.
While the memecoin’s weekly gains hovered around 5.47%, it has bled over 14% in the past month, and signs point to more downside.
Analysis showed that a clear direction for DOGE remains uncertain, as both bulls and bears continue to battle over the memecoin’s next move.
Shorts stay in the game despite heavy losses
On the 30th of June, DOGE saw a stark contrast between unrealized gains and losses.
Unrealized losses stood at $132.2 million, while only $5 million sat in profits, according to Glassnode. That’s a 26:1 ratio — meaning for every winning trade, 26 were bleeding red.
Source: Glassnode
Unrealized here means traders still have open positions—the contracts are still active, so these are not yet realized as final losses or gains.
But the key question is: Why are short traders holding onto their positions despite such steep downside?
AMBCrypto found that these traders continued to anticipate a steep DOGE decline and are holding out for that outcome.
Liquidity clusters hint at a deeper price correction
Two critical metrics support the short traders’ case, let’s unravel!
According to data on CoinGlass, Taker Sell Volume outweighed buys, with 51.97% of the trades coming from shorts.
Source: CoinGlass
Meanwhile, the Long/Short Ratio fell to 0.92, suggesting bearish dominance is tightening its grip. This metric falling below 1 usually signals rising short pressure, hinting that sellers are dictating the pace for now.
Another metric to showcase short traders’ case is the Liquidation Heatmap.
DOGE’s Liquidity Heatmap revealed stacked clusters below $0.165 — the current price zone. These clusters, typically unfilled leveraged orders, act like a gravitational pull.
Should this decline materialize, those unrealized losses would flip into gains for short sellers.
Source: CoinGlass
Naturally, the price is expected to drift toward them, and if that happens, DOGE could test $0.162 or even slide to $0.159. These are critical liquidation zones for long positions.
If hit, that would flip unrealized short losses into realized gains.
Are traders losing interest?
While bearish sentiment dominates, the bulls are not giving up easily.
According to CoinGlass data on the 30th of June, bulls accumulated $5.5 million worth of DOGE, bringing the total accumulation over the past week to $49.16 million.
Source: CoinGlass
This accumulation suggested that some investors are positioning for a potential breakout to the upside. Bullish activity has so far helped suppress a steeper price decline.
However, AMBCrypto observed that bullish momentum may be fading.
After peaking at a weekly accumulation of $105 million on the 9th of June, the amount of DOGE bought from the market has been steadily declining.
This drop indicates waning investor interest in DOGE, possibly due to the token’s weak performance.
If this trend continues, bears could regain full control of the market, potentially pushing DOGE lower in the coming trading sessions.
