Helium's HNT Rockets 167% in a Weekend — Is the Rally Over?

Helium (HNT) soared as much as 167% over the weekend, touching an intraday peak of $0.989 at the time of writing. Late-arriving traders are now wondering if the opportunity to buy HNT has passed.

The surge was driven not by fresh demand but by the forceful exit of sellers.

What Sparked the Sudden Move in a Forgotten Token

Helium operates a wireless network where individuals host hardware in their homes or businesses. The sector refers to this as decentralized physical infrastructure, or DePIN.

The catalyst was a Wi-Fi rollout in Texas that BeInCrypto covered on Saturday. The market's reaction far exceeded the announcement itself. HNT, which had stayed below $0.30 for most of the summer, climbed nearly 170% within a single weekend. Helium's core appeal has always been actual paying customers.

Back in April 2025, developer Nova Labs paid $200,000 to resolve SEC allegations. Regulators claimed it falsely stated that Lime, Nestle, and Salesforce were using the network. The dispute involved statements made to stock investors, not the token itself.

What the Price Data Reveals

The HNT price didn't rise in a smooth line. Instead, it advanced in two distinct surges, first climbing from $0.33 to $0.45 overnight. It then moved up to $0.70 by 09:00 and held steady for four hours. A later push beginning at 15:00 drove it to $0.9782.

• HNT Volume Outlook

When the price paused, the forced buying dried up. Now consider volume. The daily bar is the largest seen on Helium's two-year chart. Prior peaks reached around $45 million. This one exceeded $110 million, a level not touched since 2023.

In total, $248.26 million worth of tokens changed hands, even though the entire token's market value is just $154.8 million. That means the token turned over more than once in a single day. The majority of current HNT holders purchased it this weekend, near the peak.

• HNT Liquidations

Some traders had taken short positions against HNT, borrowing the token, selling it, and planning to repurchase it at a lower price. Instead, the price climbed, and their losses expanded with each tick. Exchanges stepped in to liquidate those positions, closing them out and buying the token back at the prevailing market rate.

Coinglass data shows that nearly $1.5 million in short positions were liquidated on Sunday alone, with over $1.6 million across the entire weekend. There is almost nothing else before that. Traders who had bet on a price rise lost just $196,650.

Every forced liquidation becomes a purchase. That's how the price advanced without new buyers stepping in. Market participants refer to this dynamic as a short squeeze.

• HNT Funding Rates

Next is the funding rate, the most revealing metric of the five. On these markets, one side pays the other a small fee at regular intervals.

For eight months, that fee stayed flat at zero. This weekend, it dropped below minus 1.2% on a single payment. Traders who are short HNT now have to pay those who are long.

“The funding rate on Bybit HNT-PERP was close to -1000% this last print. A $60m market cap token with real users, with a chart that has no resistance for another 150%, down 99% from ATH. Shorts are trapped paying crazy funding with no spot supply,” one trader observed.

Finally, there's open interest. This represents the total amount of money tied up in these positions. It counts all open long and short contracts for HNT.

That figure jumped 197.6% to $13.64 million, the highest in roughly a year. When positions are closed out, this number typically falls. Here, it nearly tripled instead.

Those traders aren't giving up; new money and fresh capital are flowing into the futures market as new contracts are created for HNT. They are being replaced faster than they are being closed out.

When HNT's price climbs alongside rising open interest, it points to strong bullish momentum. It suggests a high-conviction, aggressive upside breakout fueled by heavy leveraged demand.

Is Buying HNT Now a Wise Move?

The squeeze is already beginning to fade, as HNT peaked at $0.989 and now trades around $0.88. Forced buying has largely halted. Only $22,920 in bearish bets were closed in the last hour (at the time of writing), compared to $1.61 million over the whole day.

Traders who watch this kind of situation often view a vertical surge in open interest as a cautionary sign rather than a buying opportunity. Positions are overextended, and a sudden drop could set off a chain of forced closures in the opposite direction.

The signal they wait for is open interest leveling off, or easing a bit, while the price holds steady. That combination implies the market has accepted the new price level rather than just leveraging into it.

Funding is the second indicator, but HNT's reading is the opposite of the typical pattern. A crowded long market usually shows sharply positive funding. Here it's deeply negative, meaning the crowd remains short and is paying to stay in that position.

A shift back toward zero would indicate those bets have been closed or abandoned. At that point, the buying driven by forced closures stops, and the price must rely on genuine demand.

One supply factor favors holders, though with a caveat. Every HNT token minted so far is already in circulation, so there's no locked block waiting to vest. Issuance continues toward a 223 million cap, with about 37 million more tokens still to be released.

Once funding normalizes to zero, the Helium price must stand on its own with regular buying. Anyone purchasing now is gambling on a second squeeze, not the first one.