Bitcoin whales on Hyperliquid have turned net short for the first time since March, according to Glassnode, reversing their earlier bullish positioning as BTC trades near $80,000.
Summary
- Glassnode says Hyperliquid whales moved from net long to net short last week.
- The analytics firm has raised both a deeper pullback and a short squeeze as possibilities.
- Hyperliquid pays funding hourly, with positive rates requiring longs to pay shorts.
- Earlier Glassnode research placed major liquidation clusters near $85,000 and $87,000.
Glassnode said in an Oct. 27 post that the large traders it tracks on Hyperliquid had previously taken long positions near Bitcoin’s bottom before changing direction last week.
The firm described the cohort as net short “for the first time since March.” Its assessment left two possible outcomes open, with the traders either positioning ahead of another decline or facing losses if Bitcoin rebounds and squeezes their shorts.
Bitcoin whales reverse their earlier long positioning
In the post, Glassnode described the previous long trade as well timed but did not frame the latest bearish positioning as a confirmed forecast of lower prices. The firm’s question concerned whether the traders had anticipated a deeper pullback or would be caught by a recovery.
Earlier research from the same analytics company placed substantial leveraged positions above the market. In its Oct. 21 report, “Swept and Refilled,” Glassnode identified the two largest modeled liquidation clusters near $85,000 and $87,000, following the clearing of a band around $80,000 on Oct. 15.
The report said forced closures of short positions could accelerate a move toward $87,000, although sellers had placed a large block of spot orders between $86,500 and $87,500. Its heatmap retained a liquidation band near $79,600 below the market.
Glassnode placed the average cost of coins held by six- to 12-month buyers near $86,700 in that dated assessment. The firm estimated the True Market Mean, its reference for the average cost basis of active investors, at approximately $77,600.
Hyperliquid funding runs on an hourly payment cycle
Hyperliquid’s documentation describes funding as a payment between traders holding opposite sides of a perpetual futures contract. The exchange says the mechanism helps keep perpetual prices close to the underlying asset’s spot price, with payments transferred between longs and shorts.
When funding is positive, long positions pay short positions, according to the platform’s rules. Negative funding reverses the payment direction, requiring shorts to pay longs. Hyperliquid settles funding every hour, although its published calculation expresses the rate on an eight-hour basis.
The documentation specifies an interest component of 0.01% per eight hours, equivalent to 0.00125% per hour. A separate premium component changes with the difference between the perpetual market and the spot oracle, so the interest component alone does not establish the final funding payment.
For its premium calculation, Hyperliquid samples prices every five seconds and averages the observations over the hour. Its rules state that each hourly payment uses one-eighth of the computed eight-hour funding rate.
Hyperliquid says validators calculate oracle prices using a weighted median of centralized exchange spot prices, with the weights determined by the liquidity of each exchange.
Earlier whale transfers included 9,458 BTC from Wintermute
Large-wallet activity attracted attention before the latest derivatives positioning report. As crypto.news previously reported, Lookonchain tracked 9,458 BTC in withdrawals from Wintermute to 40 newly created wallets since Oct. 1, valuing the transfers at $771.5 million.
Lookonchain described the movements as accumulation. The transaction tally covered several weeks and did not identify how many investors controlled the receiving addresses or establish their purchase prices.
The earlier coverage included a separate September snapshot in which Onchain Lens attributed $126.25 million in Hyperliquid shorts to a Wintermute-linked address. Ethereum accounted for $46.92 million, followed by Solana at $11.30 million and HYPE at $10.03 million.
Wintermute had not publicly confirmed ownership of the address or explained the positions in that report. The coverage noted that market makers can use perpetual contracts to hedge spot holdings, options, customer trades, or exposure carried on other exchanges.
Bitcoin analysts have tied recovery conditions to spot demand
In an Oct. 1 assessment of Bitcoin’s October support levels, Bitget Wallet research lead Lacie Zhang identified $82,000 as a downside threshold and $87,500 as a recovery trigger. Her forecast placed Bitcoin between $78,000 and $95,000, conditional on demand holding up against inflation and interest-rate risks.
Zhang’s bullish scenario required Bitcoin to hold $82,000 and recover $87,500 before a move toward $95,000 became possible. She said a sustained decline below $80,000 would invalidate her seasonal bullish setup.
Her assessment put institutional purchases against profit-taking by long-term holders and sales from miners. Zhang said institutional demand could support prices but could not guarantee an October rally, while ViaBTC chief analyst Jeff Ko identified U.S. employment and inflation figures as important market inputs.
A subsequent U.S. economic release calendar placed the Federal Reserve’s policy decision on Oct. 28, followed by September personal income and outlays and the advance estimate of third-quarter GDP on Oct. 29. The calendar listed both Bureau of Economic Analysis releases for 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time.
The same calendar listed the minutes of the October policy meeting for Nov. 18 and the Fed’s final meeting of 2026 for Dec. 8–9.
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