Long/Short Ratio
Long-short ratio · LSR · Long/short account ratio · Top trader long/short ratio
A futures-market gauge that divides the long side by the short side to show where accounts or positions are piled up: on rising or falling prices.
Simple explanation
Background: Korea's won exchanges have no futures, so there is no Korean long/short ratio; Korean traders read the figures published by overseas futures exchanges such as Binance, where Koreans' positions are mixed in with everyone else's.
The ratio is the long share divided by the short share. With 60% long and 40% short it is 60 ÷ 40 = 1.5; above 1 the long side has more, below 1 the short side, and an even split is exactly 1. Futures exchanges and data providers publish it per coin over periods such as 5 minutes, 1 hour or 1 day.
First, the trap. Every futures contract is created as one long matched with one short, so across the whole market the long and short quantities are always equal. A ratio of 2 therefore does not mean twice as many long contracts. It means twice as many accounts are long, or that within a particular group the long side carries more weight. Far more long accounts can simply mean many people hold small longs while a few hold big shorts.
Binance publishes three long/short ratios in its USDT-margined futures trading data. (1) The long/short ratio (all accounts) compares the number of net-long accounts with net-short accounts among all accounts holding that coin's futures. (2) The top trader long/short ratio (accounts) does the same among the top 20% of users by margin balance, counting each account once whatever its size. (3) The top trader long/short ratio (positions) compares net long and net short positions within that same top 20%, weighted by position size. At the same moment the three can point different ways. Binance's public API serves them in periods from 5 minutes to 1 day, for the latest 30 days only.
A similar-looking figure measures something else. The taker buy/sell volume ratio compares, over a period, the value of trades that bought straight into resting sell orders with the value that sold straight into resting buy orders. It shows who was in a hurry, not how holders are positioned. Data providers also differ in which exchanges they combine and whether they count accounts or positions, so check the source behind any figure with this name.
There are two common readings. When the all-accounts ratio leans hard one way, some read it as retail crowding and watch for a move the other way (a contrarian view); others treat the top trader ratios as the direction of big money. Both are tendencies at best. Account ratios ignore size, a top trader's short may be a hedge against coins held on the spot market, one exchange's figure is not the whole market, and a lopsided reading can last a long time. The ratio does not tell you where prices will go.
It means more alongside open interest, funding rates and liquidation data. Many long accounts, a high positive funding rate and rising open interest point to leverage stacked on the long side, so even a modest drop can set off a chain of long liquidations (a long squeeze). Short crowding with negative funding can turn a rise into a short squeeze. Again, these are possibilities, not forecasts.
Korean sentiment is usually read from spot measures instead: the kimchi premium, trading value and large fills. If the overseas long/short ratio leans long while the kimchi premium is low, overseas futures may be running hot while Korea's spot market stays calm.
CoinGaja does not show long/short ratios. Its Whale Trade Radar instead splits large fills of ₩5,000,000 (about $3,600) or more on the four Korean exchanges into buys and sells and shows their totals and the buy share over the last 5, 30 and 60 minutes. Every fill has a buyer and a seller, so it is labelled by who set it off: buying straight into resting orders is a buy (red), selling straight into them is a sell (blue). Where the long/short ratio shows how position holders lean, this shows which way the big, fast orders on Korea's spot market are going. For the market-wide picture, see the CoinGaja Kimchi Premium Index and the Price and premium heatmap.
Example
10,000 accounts hold Coin A futures: 6,000 net long (60%), 4,000 net short (40%) → all-accounts long/short ratio = 60 ÷ 40 = 1.50
If the longs average $1,000 each and the shorts $1,500 → longs total $6 million = shorts total $6 million (about ₩8.4 billion each; every contract is one long plus one short)
Among 2,000 top trader accounts, 800 are net long and 1,200 net short → top trader account ratio = 40 ÷ 60 = 0.67
The same top traders' positions: $3 million long, $2 million short → top trader position ratio = 60 ÷ 40 = 1.50
Shorts lead by account count but longs lead by money → a few large accounts hold big longs
※ Example numbers, for illustration only
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