Major Bitcoin Holder Moves $113M into a $240M Spot Ether Position After Closing Large Perpetual Long
A large Bitcoin holder — a so-called whale that had been dormant for roughly seven years — has continued to rotate holdings into Ether, moving another 1,000 BTC (about $113 million) and using most of it to build a substantial spot ETH position currently worth roughly $240 million. The activity followed the closure of part of an earlier, near-$300 million Ether perpetual-futures long.
Onchain sleuthing published by pseudonymous analyst “MLM” shows the investor initially sold about $76 million worth of BTC and opened a roughly $295 million perpetual futures long on Ether. After trimming that futures exposure, the whale deposited the additional 1,000 BTC to the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid and converted most of it into spot ETH.
Blockchain tracking indicates the whale’s Hyperliquid balance now contains about 55,700 ETH (valued at about $240 million) and roughly 300 BTC (about $34 million). MLM also reported there remained approximately $167 million in BTC in the whale’s main wallet that could be sent to Hyperliquid in coming moves.
Observers noted the execution looked hurried and imperfect; MLM suggested the behavior might reflect either access to highly bullish information or speculative risk-taking. Traders often follow large wallets’ behavior to infer short-term market sentiment, and the speed of this rotation drew particular attention.
The whale’s initial $76 million BTC sale briefly created a price dislocation on Hyperliquid, with Bitcoin trading around a 2% (200 basis points) dip on that platform and approximately a 30-basis-point discount versus other exchanges. That price impact pointed to relatively shallow order books on Hyperliquid for outsized trades.
Market watchers also tied the timing of the moves to short-term market jitters: Bitcoin had fallen toward a two-week low near $112,000 shortly before the activity, ahead of scheduled remarks from U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and the Jackson Hole symposium that many expect could influence interest-rate expectations. Ryan Lee, chief analyst at Bitget, described the situation as rising market nerves before those events.
Hyperliquid has rapidly expanded its market presence in recent months. Cointelegraph cites data showing Hyperliquid reached a monthly trading-volume peak in July and accounted for a large share of blockchain-derived revenue in that period, while ranking among the top derivatives platforms by open interest — a backdrop that helps explain why a large trader might choose to concentrate activity there despite occasional liquidity gaps. Cointelegraph has reached out to Hyperliquid for comment on the exchange’s liquidity conditions.
