A mysterious whale trader who earned $192 million from perfectly timed short positions during last week’s crypto crash is back—this time doubling down on bearish bets against Bitcoin.
Whale Trader Returns With $163M Bitcoin Short
The trader, identified by the wallet address 0xb317, has opened a massive $163 million leveraged short on Bitcoin using the Hyperliquid decentralized derivatives exchange. The position, leveraged 10x, was initiated on Sunday and is already sitting on $3.5 million in unrealized profit. However, the trade faces liquidation if Bitcoin (BTC) climbs above $125,500.
This move follows a remarkably timed short from the same wallet just 30 minutes before Donald Trump’s tariff announcement on Friday—an event that triggered a steep market sell-off across crypto. That single bet reportedly earned the trader an astonishing $192 million, sparking debate and speculation about insider activity.
Speculation Over Insider Trading
The crypto community has since dubbed the entity an “insider whale,” citing the improbable timing of their trades. Many believe the whale had foreknowledge of the market-moving announcement, while others suggest the trader may have directly triggered a liquidity cascade that wiped out overleveraged positions across exchanges.
“The crazy part is that he shorted another nine figures worth of BTC and ETH minutes before the cascade happened,” observed on-chain analyst MLM, adding, “Imagine what he did on centralized exchanges.”
In the aftermath of the crash, data from HyperTracker revealed that over 250 wallets lost millionaire status on Hyperliquid since Friday’s sell-off. Meanwhile, a more optimistic trader has reportedly opened a 40x leveraged $11 million long position on Bitcoin, betting on a rebound.
Binance Denies Involvement in Market Crash
Adding to the chaos, some traders speculated that Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, may have contributed to the weekend’s meltdown. Reports circulated of failed stop-losses, malfunctioning market maker systems, and several tokens—such as USDE, BNSOL, and WBETH—temporarily depegging or crashing to zero.
Binance responded on Sunday, insisting that its core trading systems remained fully operational and attributing the issue to a “display error.” The exchange also denied that the depegging of assets caused the wider market crash, offering $283 million in compensation to affected traders who held those assets as collateral.
Despite the turmoil, Binance Coin (BNB) has staged a strong recovery, surging 14% in the past 24 hours to climb back above $1,300.
A Cautionary Tale for Crypto Traders
Janis Kluge, a researcher at SWP Berlin, summarized the sentiment among traders: “Crypto people are realizing today what it means to have unregulated markets—insider trading, corruption, and zero accountability.”
With one whale seemingly capable of shaking the entire crypto ecosystem, the market’s volatility once again highlights both the allure and the danger of decentralized derivatives trading. Whether this new short position will repeat last week’s success—or trigger another market storm—remains to be seen.
