A prominent crypto derivatives trader, who recently garnered $192 million from a well-timed short position, has now opened additional bearish trades.
The trader (0xb317) on the Hyperliquid decentralized derivatives exchange has initiated a $163 million leveraged perpetual contract to short Bitcoin (BTC) on Sunday.
This 10x leveraged position is currently showing $3.5 million in profit, but it faces liquidation if BTC hits $125,500.
The crypto community noticed the entity after it established a short position just 30 minutes before Trump’s tariff announcement on Friday, which caused a significant crypto market drop and earned them $192 million.
“Insider whale” criticized
There are speculations that this whale contributed to a massive leverage flush that destabilized crypto markets over the weekend.
“The astonishing part is that they shorted another nine figures worth of BTC and ETH minutes before the collapse,” remarked observer “MLM,” adding, “And this was only publicly on Hyperliquid; imagine what they did on CEXs or elsewhere.”
“I’m pretty certain this individual played a significant part in the events of the day.”
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Since Friday’s crash, over 250 wallets have lost their millionaire status on Hyperliquid, reported HyperTracker on Sunday.
Meanwhile, another optimistic trader opened a 40x leveraged $11 million long position in Bitcoin.
“Crypto enthusiasts are realizing today what it means to have unregulated markets: insider trading, corruption, crime, and no accountability,” stated SWP Berlin researcher Janis Kluge.
Binance denies involvement in market crash
There have been suggestions that Binance may have contributed to the market collapse, as its own order books and market makers reportedly failed, leading to a mass liquidation of traders and several tokens depegging or crashing to zero.
However, the exchange issued a statement to users asserting that there was no crash, labeling it a “display issue.”
“We are aware of the market speculation regarding the causes of this event, with some pointing to the Binance platform’s role,” the company announced on Sunday.
It confirmed that the core futures and spot matching engines and API trading “remained operational” during the event.
Binance denied that the depegging of USDE, BNSOL, and WBETH caused the market crash, but it did offer approximately $283 million in compensation to traders holding these assets as collateral who were liquidated.
The Binance exchange’s native token, BNB (BNB), has made a strong recovery, climbing 14% in the past 24 hours to exceed $1,300 again.
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