A LONG-SHORT, single-instrument, mid-horizon strategy on AVAXUSDT.BINANCE (USD-M perp, 1h bars) whose edge comes from a genuine NON-PRICE feed with confirmed multi-year history: Binance open interest. The mechanism is deliberately NOT trend/momentum/mean-reversion on price alone (the 0/213 pure-OHLCV graveyard) — the trade is gated on the JOINT sign of price change and OI change over a rolling window. A move that extends while OPEN INTEREST FALLS is a hollow move: nobody is adding fresh risk, existing positions are being closed. A rally on falling OI is short-covering (no new longs to sustain it); a sell-off on falling OI is forced long-liquidation into an air-pocket. Both exhaust and revert. A move on RISING OI (fresh money) is left alone. This is a mechanically-motivated exhaustion filter, distinct from funding-carry, basis-reversion, liquidation-feed, taker-flow, and cross-sectional-basket classes that have all died this session. Single name (not a basket → no per-rebalance N-fee tax of L12). AVAX chosen over BTC (2% survival tag) for liquid-but-more-reversion-prone behavior and a reliable OI feed. 3 parameters only, to resist the overfit that killed 229 prior hypotheses.