traders are taking risks and sending the token’s price significantly higher, even as the rally in market leader bitcoin stalls.
This is evident in the futures market, where open interest in DOGE futures has risen to 15.36 billion tokens, the highest level this year, according to Coinglass. Open interest (OI) refers to the number of active contracts at a given time.
The rebound in open interest suggests that more traders are chasing leveraged directional plays, a sign of strong risk sentiment in the market.
DOGE’s price is up nearly 10% over the past week, briefly pushing above 11 cents before settling near $0.105 at the time of writing, according to data source CoinDesk. Bitcoin, meanwhile, has pulled back below $76,000 after trading above $79,000 earlier this week.
The combination of rising spot price and futures OI suggests that new money is entering the market rather than old positions being closed. The pattern is said to reinforce the prevailing market trend, which is bullish in DOGE’s case. However, it also leaves the market more exposed to sharp liquidations if momentum reverses.
Binance accounted for nearly 3.99 billion DOGE in open interest, followed by Bitget, Bybit and OKX, each with more than 1 billion DOGE, data shows. Hyperliquid, MEXC, WhiteBIT and KuCoin also showed significant positions, pointing to a movement that was not limited to a single venue.
DOGE’s rally comes after weeks of sideways trading and a broader return of speculative interest across majors earlier this week.
Market observers such as Jordan Jefferson, founder of DogeOS and MyDoge, said in a message to CoinDesk that several catalysts could contribute to demand for the token.
“DOGE’s price movement is not tied to a single news event,” Jefferson said. “Over the past week, large holders have added more than 500 million DOGE. 21Shares noted a physically supported ETP on Xetra, and grayscale flows turned positive after nine consecutive days of outflows. On-chain activity is also up, with active addresses up 28%.”
These flows matter because DOGE’s market structure tends to react quickly when spot accumulation, derivatives leverage and retail narratives align.
The token has historically traded less as a payment asset and more as an attention-driven macro-meme, where positioning can accelerate rapidly when traders believe a familiar catalyst is back in play.
The X payment angle remains a swing factor, but the least concrete part of the DOGE trade. Elon Musk has said that X Money will launch as a payment product with peer-to-peer transfers, bank deposits, a debit card and cashback rewards through X Payments, a licensed subsidiary partnering with Visa.
Nothing in the advertised product indicates support for dogecoin or any crypto functionality. Still, DOGE traders may be reacting to the payments-related developments at Musk-owned companies, possibly hoping that the token could eventually be folded into X’s financial stack. This hope comes from Musk’s vocal support for dogecoin since at least 2021. At one point, he said the token could make DeFi more accessible to everyone.
For now, traders are treating DOGE as if something bigger is building, and the futures market is where that belief comes first.
