MOODENG rallies over 130% as open interest soars and exchange balances drop

Moo Deng price gained momentum on Friday as it soared by over 136%, making it one of the best-performing tokens in crypto.

Moo Deng (MOODENG), the pygmy hippo-themed meme coin, surged to an intraday high of $0.104 on May 9 afternoon Asian time—its highest level since Feb. 1. The token has now gained over 300% from its yearly low.

The ongoing surge coincides with a nearly 440% spike in futures open interest, hitting $125 million, the highest since Jan. 7 per CoinGlass data. Just a month ago, open interest was sitting at only $13.4 million. Rising open interest usually points to growing interest from traders and more speculative activity in the market.

The rally also aligns with the altcoin’s weighted funding rate flipping positive today. A positive funding rate basically means that traders going long are paying a small fee to shorts. It’s a sign that more people are leaning bullish and willing to pay up to hold their long positions.

Meanwhile, on-chain data shows investors are holding onto their tokens, with exchanges seeing seven straight days of net outflows totaling around $3.5 million. That’s generally bullish because it suggests people are moving tokens off exchanges into private wallets, reducing the immediate selling pressure.

Adding fuel to the hype, there’s growing buzz in the community that Binance might list MOODENG on its spot market. While nothing is confirmed, speculation is heating up since MOODENG is already trading on Binance Futures and has listings on big exchanges like Coinbase, OKX, Bitget, and Gate.io.

MOODENG’s rally today also mirrors a wider memecoin boom, fuelled in part by Bitcoin’s rally past $100,000 for the first time since February. 

The bellwether’s momentum has reignited risk appetite across the market, sending the total memecoin market cap up 15% in the last 24 hours. Other big names like Pepe (PEPE), Pudgy Penguins (PENGU), Popcat (POPCAT), and Mog Coin (MOG) have also posted strong gains of 20–50%.

Bitcoin was trading around $103,075 at press time, just shy of its all-time high, dominating market sentiment and helping pull a broad range of altcoins higher.

MOODENG price analysis

On the 4-hour USDT chart, MOODENG has broken above the upper boundary of a bull flag pattern, signaling a potential continuation of the uptrend based on classic technical analysis.

Importantly, the 50-day moving average is still holding above the 200-day, meaning the golden cross is still intact, keeping the longer-term bullish trend in play.

Momentum indicators are also lining up with the bullish outlook. The MACD lines have turned upward, hinting at growing positive momentum.

On top of that, the Relative Strength Index has surged deep into overbought territory, hitting 94.7. While this could signal that the rally is overheated in the short term, strong rallies in meme coins can stay overbought longer than expected.

With this setup, MOODENG could continue climbing toward its next big hurdle at the $0.20 psychological resistance level. A clean break above that could pave the way for bulls to target this year’s high of $0.31, which was last seen on Jan. 4.

As previously noted by analysts at crypto.news, historical trends suggest that once Bitcoin’s dominance approaches the 72.92% level, last seen in December 2022, investors could begin rotating capital into altcoins.

Currently, Bitcoin Dominance sits at 64.14%. If history repeats, it could result in additional momentum for memecoins like MOODENG in the coming weeks.