Hyperliquid Whale Flips Bearish: Massive Short Position on BTC Sparks Market Jitters

A crypto whale on Hyperliquid just triggered alarm bells—dumping long positions and going all-in on a Bitcoin short. Is this a calculated bet or the first domino in a liquidity crunch?

The move comes as BTC struggles to reclaim its June highs, with traders questioning whether institutional leverage is now dictating retail pain. Watch those liquidations—someone''s about to get rekt.

Bonus jab: Nothing unites degenerate traders like watching a whale turn tail and realizing they''re holding the bag.

Hyperliquid whales have suffered recent liquidations 

On-chain data showed the trader closed a 40X Leveraged long on BTC, absorbing $12.4M in losses. Soon after that, the whale opened a 20X leveraged short position valued at over $878K. 

At one point, AguilaTrades took a position opposite the risky trader James Wynn. The inflow of whale traders also attracted none other than Andrew Tate, who was quickly liquidated in the high-risk market. 

Recently, Wynn also got liquidated on multiple positions, also involving meme tokens like PEPE. Counter-trading Wynn was still a winning strategy, as in the case of one whale making $8M from shorting BTC just in time for its downturn.

The Hyperliquid whale was closely watched for a shift in sentiment, as long positions were attacked again. | Source: Hyperliquid

The series of liquidations affected multiple whales that voted confidence in BTC or went long on ETH. BTC traded at $104,763, while ETH slid to the $2,500 range, breaking its attempt to regain $2,800. The market momentum turned, as greed trading shifted to a more neutral attitude. 

The liquidations for long whales coincided with the market-wide downturn and liquidation of long positions. Around $1B was liquidated from the crypto markets in the past 24 hours, with over $451M in liquidations for BTC pairs. 

Hyperliquid activity remains near peak levels

Despite this, Hyperliquid’s activity remained NEAR peak levels, aiming to retain its activity from April and May. Hyperliquid usually became more active during times of clear direction for top coins, with whales taking high-profile positions. 

Following the recent peak activity, HYPE slid down to $40 after peaking at $43.76. The token sees additional buying pressure from whales, which may bring the price back toward $45. Whales are also using Hyperliquid to build positions on the native token, as well as currently hot meme tokens. Hyperliquid remains a high-risk venue, which has still produced whales with significant earnings, based on the DEX leaderboard.

The high-profile trades partially disguised the performance of whales that still managed to win in the current market. Hyperliquid still reflects the general exuberance of the market. However, there are skeptics that see the exchange as a venue for money-laundering, using liquidations to sway the asset price, while holding the reverse position on another exchange.

Additionally, Hyperliquid users are still expecting a potential second airdrop, keeping up activity in the hopes of receiving a higher payout. 

Hyperliquid remains the ninth-largest ecosystem by value locked, mostly due to the weight of the native HYPE token, but also for a small collection of memes. The ecosystem locks in $1.6B in value, with near-record inflows of USDC in the past days. The DEX still contains over $3.1B in USDC, breaking to a new high in the past week.

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