$LAB finally ran straight into the sell pressure the market had been warning about for days — and the reaction was brutal.

The token briefly crashed below the psychological $3 level today, triggering a massive wave of liquidations and panic exits across the market. At the lowest point, the 24-hour drawdown approached nearly 50%, wiping out a huge portion of recent gains in just hours.

But what happened next made the situation even more interesting.

Instead of complete capitulation, buyers immediately started stepping back in. The price managed to recover toward the $3.53 zone, showing that speculative demand around LAB is still very much alive despite the chaos.

What really stands out is the derivatives activity behind the move.

Even after the violent dump, Binance open interest remained elevated around $57.5M — a sign that traders are still heavily positioned rather than abandoning the market completely. Usually after a collapse of this size, you expect open interest to fall sharply as positions get closed and confidence disappears. That hasn’t happened yet.

And even more surprisingly, long positioning actually increased slightly after the selloff:

• Top trader long/short ratio: 37.94% vs 62.06%

• User long/short ratio: 38.98% vs 61.02%

That tells us one thing clearly: a large part of the market still believes the $LAB narrative may not be over.

This is classic high-volatility narrative coin behavior: Massive fear selling → forced liquidations → aggressive dip buying → traders trying to catch the rebound before the next explosive move.

Right now, the market is split between two groups:

Traders expecting another collapse after the dead-cat bounce

Risk buyers believing this was simply a massive leverage flush before continuation

The next few sessions will likely decide which side wins.