Crypto Whale Closes $521M Short Positions, Banks 30% Profit

A significant event unfolded in the cryptocurrency market as a crypto whale closed over 300 heavily leveraged short positions on Bitcoin, totaling more than $521 million. This move, executed on Tuesday, resulted in a profit of $3.9 million for the whale. The whale's short trade, which was placed at a Bitcoin price of $83,898 with 40x leverage, had the potential to be liquidated if Bitcoin's price rose by just 2% to $85,591.

In response to the whale's position, a group of crypto traders, led by pseudonymous trader Cbb0fe, attempted to pump over $10 million into Bitcoin to drive the price above the whale's liquidation mark. Despite these efforts, the whale managed to close the 300+ heavily leveraged short positions in less than two minutes, according to the HypurrScan block explorer. The total value of the shorts closed was approximately $16,959,000, with a margin requirement of around $13.027 million.

The whale's successful closure of the short positions resulted in a 30% profit, amounting to $3.932 million. However, the risk involved in the trade was significantly higher, as the whale had opened a cross position that could have wiped out most of the portfolio if the trade had gone against them. The whale's risky bet led to speculation that they might be an insider, but this was deemed unlikely due to the lack of relevant news before or after the position was closed.

This was not the first time the whale had made headlines. Just a week prior, the same trader caused a $4 million loss for the community-owned Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) due to a $285 million leveraged bet on Ethereum. As a result, Hyperliquid lowered the maximum leverage allowed on Bitcoin and Ethereum trades following this incident. Despite the risks, the whale has profited over $9.37 million in less than 30 days since creating the account.

Following the successful closure of the short positions, the whale made a fresh bet by taking a long position on MELANIA, the official Solana meme coin of Melania Trump. The whale invested $2.7 million with 5x leverage applied. If the Solana meme coin falls by just 9.78% from $0.7238 to $0.653, the whale's position will be liquidated. As of now, there are no signs of traders attempting to force a liquidation of this position.