An Ethereum whale suffered the liquidation of 28716 ETH, valued at 69.69 million dollars, during the market crash on October 9. This amount represents the value of the closed position, while
An Ethereum whale suffered the liquidation of 28716 ETH, valued at 69.69 million dollars, during the market crash on October 9. This amount represents the value of the closed position, while its realized loss would be close to 4.48 million dollars.
The trader used three addresses on Hyperliquid to maintain significant leveraged positions. Spotted on October 7, they then controlled about 352 million dollars of long bets on bitcoin and ether.
The total included 1140 BTC and 98090 ETH. The positions had been opened about two weeks earlier, at average prices near 82205 dollars for bitcoin and 2604 dollars for ether. They still showed an unrealized gain of 2.66 million dollars before the acceleration of the drop.
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On-chain tracking Lookonchain states that the whale “continues to bet on ETH upside”. This observation describes its visible positioning, but does not reveal its identity nor any possible hedges held on other platforms.
The price of ether dropped to about 2420 dollars overnight. This fall reached the liquidation thresholds of two portions of the position, located around 2446 and 2424 dollars.
Thirty minutes after these forced closures, the trader transferred 10 million USDC as new margin. He then bought 9580 ETH futures around 2428 dollars, just a few dollars above the level that had just triggered his liquidation.
His total exposure remained close to 288 million dollars after this new commitment. It included about 195 million dollars in long ether positions and over 93 million dollars on bitcoin.
The two main addresses held respectively nearly 39964 ETH at an average entry price of 2647 dollars and 38991 ETH around 2531 dollars. They showed a combined unrealized loss of several million dollars at the time of the snapshot.
This new risk-taking does not prove that the trader correctly anticipates a rebound. It may also be part of a broader strategy, impossible to reconstruct solely from the visible positions on Hyperliquid.
The next liquidation thresholds are around 2299 and 2286 dollars. With ether close to 2486 dollars, they are about 8% below the current price.
A decline to these levels could lead to new forced closures. Their scale will depend on margin additions, voluntary reductions, and loss evolution. The thresholds shown on Hyperliquid may therefore change before the market reaches them.
The two positions are also distributed across several addresses. Crossing a first threshold would not necessarily mean immediate liquidation of all 78955 ETH.
The public nature of the platform facilitates tracking these bets. However, it also encourages overinterpretations: a major address is not always an isolated investor. It may belong to a fund, a market maker, or an entity that offsets its risk elsewhere.
This whale was hit during a widespread purge of derivatives markets. About 1.19 billion dollars of crypto positions were liquidated over 24 hours, including more than one billion in long bets.
Ether accounted for nearly 356 million dollars in liquidations, ahead of the 298 million recorded on bitcoin. This imbalance remains notable since Ethereum’s market cap is less than one fifth that of bitcoin.
Relative to their market cap, liquidations on ether were about six times more significant. Traders had accumulated leverage while the market moved within a tight range. Breaking the supports then triggered successive automatic sell-offs.
The bet of this whale therefore illustrates less a conviction to follow than a risk inherent to leverage. Even a rebound of ether can improve its margin, but an additional 8% drop would put its positions back under pressure.
