A crypto whale holding 98,089 ETH in leveraged long positions worth approximately $252.3 million has moved within striking distance of two major liquidation levels, just as another large trader built $26.5 million of 20x shorts across Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP and Dogecoin.
Lookonchain flagged the ETH exposure late October 7, identifying liquidation prices of $2,446.48 and $2,424.47 across two tracked positions associated with the whale.
Ether was trading around $2,570 when the positions were highlighted, leaving the first liquidation threshold less than 5% below the market.
Only 17 minutes after the whale alert, Lookonchain identified another trader, wallet 0xdd6a, positioned aggressively in the opposite direction on Aster. The trader had approximately $26.5 million of 20x short exposure across five major cryptocurrencies and was already showing about $586,000 in unrealized profit.
Together, the positions provide a concentrated view of the leverage building around a crypto market that had already suffered hundreds of millions of dollars in long liquidations a day earlier.
The ETH Whale Has More Than $250 Million Exposed Near Two Liquidation Levels
The larger position is the most consequential from a market-structure perspective.
Lookonchain identified 98,089 ETH of long exposure worth about $252.3 million, with liquidation levels at $2,446.48 and $2,424.47.
The two levels are separated by only $22.01, meaning another sharp decline could potentially bring a large amount of leveraged ETH exposure into liquidation territory within a relatively narrow price range.
This does not mean $252 million would automatically be dumped into the market at one price.
Hyperliquid’s liquidation mechanism is based on maintenance margin and attempts to close positions through the order book when account equity falls below the required threshold. The actual process can therefore depend on position structure, remaining margin, market liquidity and execution.
But the concentration still matters.
Large liquidation levels can become market reference points because a decline toward them creates the possibility of additional forced selling precisely when liquidity may already be deteriorating.
That risk was demonstrated less than a day earlier when a 3,728 ETH position worth roughly $9.85 million was liquidated in about three minutes after Ether broke below $2,600.
The current whale exposure is roughly 25 times larger in notional terms.
Ether Is Already Trading Against a Weak Flow Backdrop
The liquidation risk is arriving after a difficult session for Ethereum.
ETH fell about 4.5% on October 7, dropping from around $2,697 to the $2,570 area and briefly trading near $2,544.
Institutional flows have also turned sharply negative.
Farside Investors data show U.S. spot Ethereum ETFs recorded another $160.9 million of net outflows on October 7. BlackRock’s ETHA accounted for $116.1 million of that total.
Across the five trading sessions from October 1 through October 7, the funds lost roughly $506 million on a net basis.
That does not mean ETF selling will force the whale into liquidation. It does mean the position is sitting above its liquidation levels while one important source of spot demand has recently been moving in the wrong direction.
Another Whale Is Betting $26.5 Million on More Downside
At almost the same time, trader 0xdd6a was taking the other side of the market.
Lookonchain reported that the wallet opened 20x shorts on Aster across five assets:
- 3,629 ETH worth approximately $9.33 million, showing about $163,000 in unrealized profit;
- 73,728 SOL worth about $8.52 million, up roughly $141,000;
- 48.37 million DOGE worth about $4.24 million, up approximately $224,000;
- 1.68 million XRP worth roughly $2.37 million, up about $53,000; and
- 24 BTC worth approximately $1.99 million, up around $5,600.
The combined unrealized gain was approximately $586,000 when the positions were flagged.
The allocation is notable because this is not simply an ETH hedge. The trader has constructed a broad leveraged bet against the crypto market, with ETH and SOL making up roughly two-thirds of the $26.5 million gross position.
Aster uses mark prices rather than simply the latest traded price to determine unrealized profit and trigger liquidations. At 20x leverage, the short book can generate large percentage changes in the trader’s margin from relatively small movements in the underlying assets.
The current profit therefore comes with substantial reversal risk.
If the market rebounds sharply, the same leverage producing outsized returns on the downside can rapidly erode the collateral supporting the positions.
Large Shorts Are Becoming a Recurring Feature of This Selloff
The 0xdd6a positions follow another unusually timed cluster of bearish trades.
Four newly created Hyperliquid wallets recently deposited a combined $1 million in USDC and opened 40x shorts totaling 148.49 BTC, worth approximately $12.5 million, shortly before Bitcoin fell below $84,000.
Dave Finances’ analysis of the four fresh wallets that shorted Bitcoin ahead of the decline found no evidence proving insider knowledge despite the unusually favorable timing.
The same caution applies here.
A visible $26.5 million short book does not prove that 0xdd6a knows where the market is headed. Nor does the whale’s $252 million ETH long prove sophisticated capital expects a recovery.
Large wallets can be wrong.
They can also hold spot assets, options or positions on other venues that are invisible when observers look at one address in isolation.
Abraxas Capital provides a useful example. Dave Finances previously tracked a Hyperliquid short book exceeding $980 million, but corresponding spot holdings indicated that at least some of the apparent bearish exposure formed part of a hedged or market-neutral strategy.
A Separate Whale Put $1.33 Million of ZEC Behind Zcash’s Privacy Layer
Another notable capital movement occurred several hours later.
Onchain Lens identified transparent Zcash address t1hBootr...EpEr withdrawing 1,000 ZEC worth approximately $1.33 million from Binance before sending the entire amount into Zcash’s shielded pool.
The move changes what outside observers can see.
A shielding transaction from a transparent address remains visible when the funds enter the privacy pool, but subsequent shielded transfers can conceal the receiving addresses and amounts from ordinary public blockchain analysis.
That means the 1,000 ZEC can no longer be followed using the same simple wallet-tracking methods applied to transparent balances.
There is no evidence that the movement was illicit or that the holder intends to sell. Privacy is a native function of Zcash, not evidence of wrongdoing.
The flow is nevertheless relevant because ZEC has already generated some of the market’s most dramatic leveraged trades. Dave Finances recently tracked a whale that sold approximately $87.5 million of ETH to reinforce an underwater ZEC short after the privacy coin’s rally pushed the position deep into losses.
Multicoin Has Now Sent Nearly $63 Million of HYPE to Coinbase Prime
Institutional wallet activity is also appearing around Hyperliquid’s HYPE token.
Onchain Lens reported that Multicoin Capital transferred another 67,500 HYPE worth approximately $5.92 million to Coinbase Prime.
That takes identified transfers over the past four weeks to about 760,580 HYPE worth approximately $62.99 million.
The destination is important, but it should not be confused with a confirmed sale.
Coinbase Prime supports institutional custody as well as execution. Tokens reaching a Prime address could be held, reorganized, used for another institutional purpose or sold. Blockchain data alone cannot establish which action Multicoin intends.
The same distinction arose when U.S. government-linked Bitcoin recently moved to Coinbase Prime: an exchange or prime-broker deposit establishes custody movement, not execution.
The $252 Million ETH Long Is the Position That Matters Most
Viewed individually, the four transactions tell different stories.
The ZEC transfer is principally about privacy and disappearing public visibility. Multicoin’s HYPE deposits are an institutional fund-flow signal whose ultimate purpose remains unknown. The Aster shorts show a trader using substantial leverage to express broad bearish exposure.
The 98,089 ETH long is different because it carries a clearly identified market threshold.
At the time it was flagged, ETH needed to fall less than 5% to reach the first liquidation level. A move toward $2,446 would therefore not simply represent another decline in the spot price; it could begin testing whether a quarter-billion-dollar leveraged position has sufficient margin to survive.
That is particularly important after October 7 showed how quickly forced selling can propagate through crypto derivatives.
If ETH stabilizes or rebounds, the liquidation levels become another near miss and the whale retains enormous upside exposure.
If ETH resumes its decline, however, $2,446.48 and $2,424.47 become more than chart levels.
They become points where one of the market’s largest publicly visible long positions may be forced to start getting smaller.
Johan Shamshad is a financial markets writer at Dave Finances covering cryptocurrencies, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, financial regulation, and developments across global markets. He previously worked at Gulf News, adding newsroom experience to his coverage of fast-moving financial and digital-asset markets.
His work focuses on identifying market-moving events, company developments, regulatory changes, product launches, and shifts in trading and financial infrastructure.
Johan contributes news and analysis designed to help readers understand not only what happened, but why a development matters and how it may affect the wider financial landscape.