Investigación verificada por fuentes: Binance / OKX

What happened to the price

Binance's four-hour candles show a steady unwind rather than one crash. STRK opened 12 October at $0.1231. The first four hours took it to $0.1087, about 12% lower. It bounced to $0.1140, sagged to $0.1014 by 08:00 UTC, recovered to $0.1046, and in the 12:00 UTC candle broke to a low of $0.0919. At 14:50 UTC spot traded at $0.0933, the perpetual at $0.0930.

Put against the run-up, the move is a partial give-back. STRK closed 7 October at $0.0491. Over the next four days it climbed every day, closing 11 October at $0.1232, a 151% gain, and touched $0.1265 shortly before midnight. From that peak to today's price is a fall of about 26%. Even after the drop the token is still about 90% above its 7 October close.

OKX shows the same shape: a 24-hour high of $0.1268, a low of $0.0918 and a last price of $0.0932 for its STRK perpetual.

Why the rally stalled

The rally had one catalyst. On 8 October StarkWare CEO Eli Ben-Sasson asked publicly whether Starknet should leave Ethereum and become its own layer 1, and the project then said it was "actively considering" the move, with 2027 as the target to become the first fully quantum-resistant network. Decrypt reported the plan and the reasoning: as a layer 2, Starknet can only be as quantum-safe as Ethereum, whose own roadmap targets core post-quantum infrastructure around 2029. We covered the first leg of the move, including how most traders bet against it, in Starknet (STRK) jumps 54% after its layer-1 plan.

Since then the news has not moved. The L1 idea is still a consideration, not a dated migration, and there was no fresh statement on 12 October that would explain a sell-off. That leaves the usual mechanics of a rally that lifted daily spot volume more than tenfold (from $9.0 million on 7 October): early buyers taking profit, and late buyers sitting on losses once the price stops making new highs. Spot volume tells the story. Binance traded $103.8 million of spot STRK on 11 October, the busiest day of the run; by 14:50 UTC on 12 October it had done $45.2 million.

The wider market did not help. Bitcoin was down 0.8% over 24 hours at about $82,500 and Solana down about 1%, with traders waiting for US inflation data later in the week. NexuAlpha's liquidation feed counted $15.1 million of liquidations in the four hours to 14:48 UTC across the pairs it tracks, and 98% of that was long positions. STRK sat at the top of our movers list as the biggest decliner by volume, with $870 million traded on the Binance perpetual in 24 hours.

What the futures market says

The derivatives data is the most useful part of the picture, because it shows who is selling.

Open interest fell with the price. Binance STRK open interest peaked at 495.8 million tokens ($59.2 million) at 16:00 UTC on 11 October. By 12:00 UTC on 12 October it was 440.3 million tokens ($46.0 million): 11% fewer contracts and 22% less dollar exposure. When price and open interest fall together, positions are being closed, mostly longs taking profit or being stopped out. If new shorts were driving the drop, open interest would rise.

Funding flipped from negative to positive. During the rally Binance funding was negative, as low as -0.0053% per four-hour period at 12:00 UTC on 11 October, meaning shorts were paying longs. From 20:00 UTC on 11 October every settlement has been +0.005%, the standard positive level, and OKX's STRK perpetual settled at the same +0.005%. The crowded short trade has been closed out.

Ordinary accounts are buying the dip. Binance's global long/short account ratio shows the share of accounts holding longs at 37.5% at 04:00 UTC and 42.2% at 12:00 UTC. Among Binance's top traders by position size the long share climbed from 51.8% to 57.7% over the same day. In other words, while the price fell, more traders positioned for a bounce.

The live board below shows the current STRK funding on Binance and OKX next to the other large pairs:

That last point is the risk to watch. Earlier in the move most accounts were short and the price squeezed them. Now the positioning has swung the other way, and if the price keeps sliding, those new longs become the fuel for the next leg down. On 12 October OKX also held 169.6 million STRK of open interest, about $15.8 million, so the two venues together carried about $62 million of STRK futures exposure at the time of writing.

How to act on this

If you trade STRK after a move like this, size for the swings the token has shown: a 26% fall from the peak in under a day, after 151% up in four. Keep leverage low enough that a 15% move against you does not liquidate the position, use a stop rather than averaging down, and check the funding board before holding a perpetual overnight; funding is small today but it was negative two days ago and can turn again. If you trade the STRK perpetual on OKX, opening the account with the code nexu888 returns 40% of your trading fees, which matters most on exactly the kind of high-turnover days STRK is having. The liquidations page shows whether the next move is clearing longs or shorts.

Quick answers

Why is STRK down today? The rally after Starknet's layer-1 announcement stalled with no new news; STRK fell from $0.1265 to about $0.093 as traders closed positions and took profit.

How much is STRK down? About 17% over 24 hours and about 26% from its 11 October peak, as of 14:50 UTC on 12 October 2026.

Is Starknet leaving Ethereum? Not yet. The project says it is "actively considering" becoming an L1 with a 2027 target for full quantum resistance; there is no migration date.

Are traders shorting STRK? Fewer than before. Open interest fell 22% in dollar terms and funding turned positive, while the share of long accounts on Binance rose to 42%.

Is STRK still up for the week? Yes. At $0.093 it is still about 90% above its 7 October close of $0.049.