Near Protocol dropped 3.10% in a single hour on Sunday morning, falling to $5.25 and handing back a chunk of an earlier rally. The move came after the token had climbed 5.73% in just four hours earlier in the day, making the reversal sharper than it looks at first glance.
The drop happened at 5:32 a.m. ET on Sept. 27. An hour earlier, the price was $5.42, according to figures calculated from public spot prices on Binance's NEAR/USDT market. That is a fast round trip in either direction.
The liquidations were one-sided
The drop triggered $600,000 in long liquidations across Binance, Bybit, and OKX during the same hour, according to TokenPost data. Longs are bets that the price will rise. When the price falls fast enough, exchanges automatically close those positions to limit losses.
Short liquidations, which are bets against the price, totaled just $10,000 in the same window. The imbalance shows the move caught the bullish side off guard.
**The rally that preceded it**
The 3.10% drop reversed gains from a rapid run-up. At 5:02 a.m. ET, NEAR had reached $5.33 after rising 5.73% in four hours, moving from $5.05 to $5.33, according to TokenPost data from the same Binance market. That rally had pushed the 24-hour gain to 10.66%. The pullback brought that figure down to 8.49% by the end of the hour.
**The 24-hour picture is still green**
Even after the sharp drop, NEAR was up 8.49% over 24 hours, according to TokenPost. The token held a market capitalization of approximately $6.98817 billion and ranked 21st by that measure. A 3.10% hourly pullback after a 5.73% four-hour rally is not unusual in crypto, but the liquidation figures suggest leverage had built up quickly on the way up.
---
The level to watch is $5.25. If the token holds that floor, the pullback looks like a natural breather after a fast run. If it breaks below, the $5.05 level from the earlier rally becomes the next reference point.
---