"Crypto Whale's $7M Bet: Trump's Announcement Timing Raises Eyebrows"

Coin WorldSunday, Mar 2, 2025 10:41 pm ET

1min read

A crypto whale has reaped significant profits from strategic bets on Bitcoin and Ether, with gains totaling nearly $7 million. The whale, who deposited $5.9 million in USD Coin (USDC) on decentralized derivatives exchange Hyperliquid on March 1, placed hundreds of 50x leverage long position bets on the two cryptocurrencies.

The whale's first Ether (ETH) long position was placed on March 2 at 2:49 pm UTC, just 35 minutes before US President Donald Trump announced the Crypto Strategic Reserve. This announcement caused an explosion in market prices, with the whale's Ether positions from Ethereum wallet address "0xe4d...02c62" starting to close 16 minutes later. Some have speculated whether insider trading was involved in the whale's actions.

The whale's first Bitcoin (BTC) long position was placed on March 1 at 10:44 pm UTC, when Bitcoin was trading around $86,033. Many positions were then closed between $87,512 and $91,399, with some of those Bitcoin exit positions coming before Trump's announcement. Most of the whale's positions have now been closed for a profit above $6.8 million, according to crypto analytics platform HyperDash.

It is worth noting that Trump's first post about the Crypto Strategic Reserve only confirmed XRP (XRP), Solana (SOL), and Cardano's (ADA) inclusion. Nearly two hours later, Trump confirmed that Bitcoin and Ether were not only included but would be at the "heart of the reserve." Between those two posts, Bitcoin and Ether's prices were rising, but not to the same extent as the other tokens initially mentioned.

Industry pundits have speculated whether insider trading was involved in the whale's actions, given the 50x leverage used. This meant that a 2% price fall in Bitcoin or Ether would have triggered liquidation. The founder and host of The Moon Show, Carl Moon, described the trade as potentially the "biggest INSIDER TRADE I’ve ever seen," while one X user suggested that the trader would have longed other tokens had they known about Trump's incoming announcement.

The Crypto Strategic Reserve follows weeks of evaluation from the President's newly formed Working Group on Digital Assets, led by executive director Bo Hines and David

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