Nvidia-linked crypto trading topped $189 million over 24 hours through late Sunday, even while Wall Street was closed. The activity came as CEO Jensen Huang admitted to an affair and the chip
Nvidia-linked crypto trading topped $189 million over 24 hours through late Sunday, even while Wall Street was closed.
The activity came as CEO Jensen Huang admitted to an affair and the chipmaker's board opened an independent investigation into reporting that he was targeted by a foreign intelligence effort.
A review of the contract's 25 largest positions identified three accounts that opened new shorts totaling about $9.1 million on Sunday afternoon. These positions profit if the contract's price falls.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.Getty Images
Blockchain analytics account Lookonchain flagged one of the trades on Sunday night, reporting that a whale used 10x leverage to short Nvidia exposure equivalent to about 30,000 shares, a $5.44 million position, on Hyperliquid.
Hyperliquid is a crypto exchange that runs around the clock, including weekends, and it is best known for perpetual futures.
A perpetual future is a contract that lets traders bet on whether a price will rise or fall without owning the asset itself, and it has no expiry date. The exchange's xyz markets list these contracts for traditional assets such as US stocks, so a crypto trader can take a position on Nvidia's share price without buying a single share. A position that profits when the price falls is known as going short.
Data from Hypurrscan, a public explorer that tracks Hyperliquid wallets, put the position's entry at $181.33. The contract traded near $178.89 as of about 10:56 p.m. ET on Sunday, leaving the trade up roughly $73,000 on paper.
With 10x leverage, the wallet controls exposure ten times larger than the margin, the collateral it put up, so gains and losses are magnified tenfold.
The wallet runs on cross margin shared with its other positions, so Hypurrscan's liquidation estimate near $290 is a snapshot that moves with the account's collateral, not a fixed trigger.
The same wallet is also short 200 Bitcoin worth about $15 million at 30x leverage, Hypurrscan data shows. That position was up about $90,700 in the same snapshot.
From the archives: Crypto's mysterious movers that make or break markets (Jan. 28, 2026). This video explains how large crypto traders position for volatility; it does not cover the current Nvidia trades.
Crypto’s mysterious movers that make or break markets (4:24)Two other accounts opened positions of about $1.8 million each, beginning at 3:38 p.m. and 4:52 p.m. ET Sunday. The $5.4 million position began at 5:51 p.m., making it the largest new Sunday short verified among the 25 positions reviewed.
At about 11:23 p.m. ET, 14 of the 25 largest positions listed by Hypurrscan were shorts and 11 were longs. This is a snapshot of the largest positions, not a count of every trader on Hyperliquid or a tally of shorts opened after Huang's statement.
The largest short in that group was worth about $9.8 million and dated to Nov. 3. It therefore cannot be counted as a new position opened in response to Sunday's developments.
Hyperliquid data showed about $189.3 million in trading over the rolling 24 hours through 11:20 p.m. ET Sunday. Separately, the contract recorded about $12.6 million over the full ET calendar day on Saturday, Nov. 7.
Trading volume includes both buyers and sellers. It is not the amount of new short exposure, and the available records do not establish that the activity was driven entirely by the Huang news.
Nvidia's board said in a statement that a committee of independent directors, assisted by outside counsel, will oversee the investigation, and that it "has confidence in Jensen and his leadership team."
"While the Board has no reason to believe that either national security or NVIDIA secrets were compromised, the Board's inquiry will examine all available information," the statement said.
"I was unfaithful to my wife. My actions hurt her and our children. There is no excuse for what I did. I am deeply sorry," Huang wrote in the email, which Nvidia posted on its newsroom.
"NVIDIA's Board of Directors has initiated an independent investigation. I support the investigation and will cooperate fully," Huang wrote in the same email.
On Thursday, the chairmen of three House committees asked Huang to brief Congress on Nov. 18 on his ties to a suspected Chinese intelligence asset, giving him until Nov. 11 to respond, according to a House press release.
US counterintelligence officials have warned businesses for years that foreign intelligence services target American technology companies and the people who run them. In a January 2022 speech, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau had more than 2,000 active investigations tied to the Chinese government's efforts to steal US information and technology, and was opening a new related counterintelligence case about every 12 hours.
The approach is often patient and personal. In one documented case, an officer for China's Ministry of State Security used aliases, front companies and university invitations to recruit aviation engineers, paying their travel and stipends to visit China before asking for proprietary files, according to the Justice Department.
A jury convicted the officer, Yanjun Xu, in 2021, and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2022, the first Chinese intelligence officer extradited to the US to stand trial. Justice Department records show President Joe Biden commuted his sentence to time served in November 2024.
"We consistently see that it's the Chinese government that poses the biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security," Wray told business leaders in London in July 2022, speaking alongside the head of Britain's MI5. He said China's intelligence service targets companies "from Fortune 100s to start-ups" working on everything "from aviation, to AI, to pharma," often through intermediaries who spot and recruit sources.
Whether any such effort reached Huang is the question Nvidia's investigation now examines. The board said it has no reason to believe national security or company secrets were compromised.
Nvidia shares closed Friday at $186.64, down from about $215 in late October as AI stocks sold off, per Yahoo Finance data. In overnight trading on Blue Ocean, a venue for trading US stocks outside regular market hours, the stock fell another 3.6% to about $179.87 late Sunday.
TheStreet reported last week that five longtime tech stalwarts have tumbled more than 50% from their highs.
The first regular test for Nvidia shares comes when US markets open at 9:30 a.m. ET on Monday.
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