Crypto Whale Shifts $31M to Chainlink, Liquidates $200M ETH Position

An anonymous cryptocurrency trader, known for their highly leveraged position in Ether (ETH) on the Hyperliquid platform, has recently shifted their focus to Chainlink (LINK). On March 14, this trader, referred to as “ETH 50x Big Guy,” took out long positions in LINK worth approximately $31 million with 10 times leverage. The positions were placed on Hyperliquid and GMX, two popular perpetuals exchanges, according to onchain data from Lookonchain, a Web3 analytics service. Additionally, the whale accumulated roughly $12 million in spot LINK.

This move comes after the trader intentionally liquidated a roughly $200 million ETH long position on March 12, causing Hyperliquid’s liquidity pool, HLP, to lose $4 million. The trader’s profits from this liquidation topped roughly $1.8 million. According to Lookonchain, the trader has earned nearly $17 million in the past month on Hyperliquid. The incident highlighted the challenges facing perpetual trading platforms, which enable traders to take long or short positions many times larger than their deposited capital. Hyperliquid responded to the losses by announcing revised collateral rules for traders with open positions to guard against similar edge cases in the future.

The whale’s decision to invest in LINK suggests confidence in the project's ability to deliver reliable data feeds and secure smart contract interactions, which are crucial for the development of decentralized applications. Chainlink, the most popular decentralized oracle service, has seen significant price fluctuations in recent months. The price of its native LINK token increased by more than 150% in the weeks after a major event, but has since given up much of those gains, declining from highs of nearly $30 per token to less than $14 as of March 14. Chainlink’s market capitalization is currently around $8.7 billion.

In the ensuing hours after taking the LINK positions, the whale gradually reduced their LINK holdings through small swaps back into stablecoins, as per onchain data. This strategic maneuver indicates a calculated approach to managing risk and maximizing returns. The whale’s actions have drawn attention from the broader cryptocurrency community, as investors and analysts alike speculate on the potential impact of this significant investment on the price of LINK and the broader market. The trader’s move to LINK highlights their strategic approach to the cryptocurrency market, as they continue to seek out high-potential assets with strong fundamentals.