Hyperliquid Whale’s $420 million Bitcoin Short Sparks Public ‘Hunt’

A whale wallet on the decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid has stirred the community by executing a high-leverage short position with a tight liquidation price. This trade caught the attention of other whale groups, triggering an unprecedented public “whale hunt” in the market.

Additionally, Hyperliquid believes that such easily trackable trading activity represents the future of decentralization.

Attempt to Liquidate a High-Leverage Trade Worth Over $420 Million

A whale with the wallet address 0xf3F496C9486BE5924a93D67e98298733Bb47057c opened a 40x leverage Short position on Bitcoin, totaling over $423 million. At the time of writing, its liquidation price stood at $86,198. Currently, the short position is in profit by over $2 million.

This whale has also recently executed large-leverage trades, raising suspicions among experts about potential ties to North Korean hackers.

The massive position size and tight liquidation price caught the attention of a user on X (formerly Twitter) named CBB. He called for a group effort to hunt the whale’s position by pushing BTC’s price higher. In a post on X, he claimed that “eight figures” (millions of dollars) had been committed to the plan.

“If you are willing to hunt this dude with size, drop a DM, setting up a team right now and already got good size,” CBB stated.

CBB also revealed that Justin Sun, founder of Tron (TRX), was part of the group. However, Sun has not officially confirmed this. Additionally, CBB invited Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump, to join.

The story is still unfolding, and it’s unclear how far CBB’s whale-hunting effort will go. For now, the position remains profitable, and Bitcoin is trading at $83,460, just 3% away from liquidation.

A Kaiko report from early March states that Bitcoin’s 1% market depth is $300 million. This means pushing BTC up by 1% could require at least $300 million in capital.

Many X users are following the event like a high-stakes drama. CryptoVikings believes that the Hyperliquid whale is publicly shorting while simultaneously going long on a centralized exchange (CEX).

“HL whale strategy was simple. Short huge amount at high leverage publicly in Hyperliquid to gain attention. Long in CEX at the same time. He expected MMs and institutions would take out liquidation, pushing BTC $1K above, triggering a short squeeze and a good pump. He would make net profit on his longs. But MMs & exchanges understood the strategy. They first pushed the price down to liquidate his CEX position, then pumped the price much higher to hunt him on both sides,” CryptoVikings predicted.

Hyperliquid has embraced the event, praising public trading transparency as the future of decentralization.

“Hyperliquid has redefined trading. When a whale shorts $450M+ BTC and wants a public audience, it’s only possible on Hyperliquid…Anyone can photoshop a PNL screenshot. No one can question a Hyperliquid position, just like no one can question a Bitcoin balance. The decentralized future is here,” Hyperliquid stated.

The market is watching closely as this whale war continues to unfold.