Bitcoin: Hyperliquid whales go short for the first time since March

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Glassnode tracks the cohort of the largest accounts on the platform. Their aggregate balance on the BTC perpetual fell below zero last week. The previous episode dates back to March. According to data relayed by Crypto Briefing, these whales accumulate approximately $1.33 billion in shorts compared to 952 million in longs. Their net seller balance is therefore approaching $380 million. Glassnode leaves two readings open: an advance on a deeper correction, or a short squeeze if the price starts to rise again.

Hyperliquid's order book runs on its own blockchain. Each open position, each entry price, each liquidation threshold can be viewed at the exact address, which no centralized exchange offers to its clients.

This transparency has to be paid for. In May 2025, trader James Wynn had set up a long position of $1.25 billion in Bitcoin. On May 30, BTC's fall below $105,000 caused it to liquidate more than 1,000 BTC. According to The Block, its losses then reached around $110 million in one week. Wynn then publicly denounced “corrupt” markets.

The word “shorts” covers several professions. A portion of the short positions simply cover bitcoin held in cash or via an ETF. Buying spot BTC and selling a perpetual contract opposite allows you to cash in the funding without a directional bet. This payment from buyers to sellers remains positive as long as the market tilts upward. Hyperliquid pays it every hour, when most centralized platforms charge it every eight hours. Seen from Hyperliquid, this hedge is indistinguishable from a bearish bet.

Any visible shorts attract hunters. The platform’s BTC contract is worth several billion dollars of open interest. A cluster of short positions concentrated in the same price zone therefore becomes a target for anyone who wants to trigger liquidations there. Several addresses each carry more than $200 million in open shorts around $76,000, according to Crypto Briefing. With BTC close to $80,000, these positions are already in latent loss. In March 2025, a whale caused the memecoin JELLY to soar after having its shorts taken back by the HLP vault. The latter had suffered up to $12 million in unrealized losses, then Hyperliquid withdrew the contract.

The balance of a cohort remains an aggregate. A few highly capitalized addresses are indeed enough to tip it over. Furthermore, the whales of Hyperliquid speak neither for those of Binance nor for the institutional accounts of the CME. Their recent track record nevertheless justifies monitoring them: they had taken the buyer's direction to the lowest level.

Machine-translated from French