$RIVER is still in the early stages of launch. Currently, the long side is profiting by pushing up the price to earn funding rates, but this is far from the endgame. There are still a large number of short positions that remain open in the market. The true turning point will occur when—short sellers go bankrupt gradually due to excessively high funding costs, or are forced to exit because they cannot afford the fees. Usually, it takes twenty or thirty funding cycles for shorts to significantly decrease.

In this process, early entrants on the long side following the main force and traders who react quickly to close positions can profit. However, longs entering in the middle or late stages become the bagholders. Interestingly, even if the price eventually crashes, shorts may not necessarily make money—because they have already exhausted their funds on funding fees.

At this stage, it is very risky for shorts to continue entering. Longs can still enter before the funding fees are fully collected, and there is still profit potential if they choose reasonable levels to close positions. There are always people in the market shouting "It will fall now," but such voices are usually very misleading. If the main force wants to close positions now, they face the problem of difficulty in executing trades or can only do so at very low prices, which prevents them from earning the expected profit. Funding fees have not been fully collected, and shorts are still entering continuously—so why not keep collecting until the end? When longs are forced to liquidate more heavily, and long positions pile up further, the counterparty for closing positions will be larger, and the transaction price can be pushed higher.