A major crypto derivatives trader, who recently earned $192 million from a precisely timed short, is making another bearish move.
The whale, known by the wallet 0xb317 on the Hyperliquid decentralized derivatives platform, opened a $163 million leveraged perpetual contract to short Bitcoin on Sunday.
Currently, the 10x leveraged position is showing $3.5 million in profit but faces liquidation if BTC climbs to $125,500.
The trader first drew widespread attention when they opened a short just 30 minutes before Trump’s tariff announcement on Friday, a move that triggered a crypto market drop and earned them $192 million.
Dubbed an “insider whale”
The trader is being called an “insider whale” by the crypto community, thanks to the uncanny timing of their trades—opened just minutes before a major announcement.
Some speculate the whale may have even triggered a massive leverage cascade that slammed crypto markets over the weekend.
“The wild part is he shorted another nine-figure amount of BTC and ETH just minutes before the cascade hit,” noted observer “MLM.” They added, “And that’s only what’s visible on Hyperliquid—imagine the moves he made on CEXs or elsewhere.”
“I’m pretty sure this guy played a huge role in what happened today.”
Hyperliquid sees mass millionaire wipeout
Since Friday’s crash, over 250 wallets on Hyperliquid have lost millionaire status, HyperTracker reported Sunday. Meanwhile, another bullish trader opened a 40x leveraged $11 million long on Bitcoin.
“Crypto people are realizing today what it means to have unregulated markets: insider trading, corruption, crime, and zero accountability,” said SWP Berlin researcher Janis Kluge.
Binance denies involvement in market meltdown
Speculation also pointed to Binance as a potential factor in the crash, with reports of failing order books, non-executing stop-losses, mass liquidations, and several tokens reportedly depegging or dropping to zero.
The exchange responded, calling the event a “display issue” and assuring users that its core futures and spot matching engines, as well as API trading, “remained operational.”
Binance denied that the depegging of USDE, BNSOL, and WBETH caused the market turmoil but announced around $283 million in compensation for traders who were liquidated using these assets as collateral.
BNB, Binance’s native token, has since rebounded sharply, rising 14% in the past 24 hours to reclaim a price above $1,300.
