Crypto market maker Wintermute has doubled down on the short side of Hyperliquid, lifting its total bearish exposure on the perpetual DEX to $190.77 million and depositing fresh capital even as parts of the top 10 continue to rally.
The move was flagged on Sunday by on-chain analytics account Onchain Lens, which tracks the desk’s public Hyperliquid wallet.
According to the post, the same address grew its short book by roughly $44.58 million in a matter of days, up from the $146.19 million short exposure Onchain Lens documented on August 22. Alongside the perp build-up, the tracker noted that Wintermute has continued moving large BTC tranches into Binance, a pattern the desk has repeated through this week’s rally.
The Book: ETH and BTC Anchor a Broad Bearish Spread
Data from the tracked wallet, address 0xecb6..82b00, shows the current top five short positions as:
- Ethereum (ETH): $52.02 million
- Bitcoin (BTC): $30.66 million
- Solana (SOL): $22.62 million
- Hyperliquid (HYPE): $11.43 million
- XRP: $10.19 million
Together, ETH and BTC alone account for roughly $83.68 million of the notional exposure, a little under 44% of the book. The spread across SOL, HYPE, and XRP shows the desk is not concentrating risk on a single narrative but layering shorts across the majors and the two names driving the most reflexive flows this week.
The XRP position stands out. Ripple’s token has been one of the strongest performers in the top ten, gaining close to 47% over the trailing seven days on the back of ETF inflows, the US Treasury’s expanded buyback program and thin weekend liquidity. Wintermute stepping into that move with a fresh $10 million-plus short is a clear statement that the desk is not chasing the rally on a delta basis.
Unrealized Loss, But Lifetime PnL Still Green
Across the current book, the wallet is sitting on an unrealized loss of about $5.85 million, up from the $3.66 million loss Onchain Lens flagged two days earlier. The tracker also noted at the time that the wallet was earning $2.14 million in accrued funding, an income stream that typically grows as short positioning becomes more crowded.
Even with the drawdown, the address’s lifetime PnL on Hyperliquid remains strongly positive, which is the single most important data point for anyone trying to read intent. A desk with a green lifetime curve adding size into a rally is far more consistent with inventory hedging or basis positioning than with a punchy directional call.
Binance Deposits Add Another Layer to the Read
The perp build-up is not happening in isolation. Onchain Lens also flagged that Wintermute has been moving significant sums of Bitcoin into centralized exchanges, primarily Binance, in tandem with the fresh Hyperliquid deposits. Earlier tracking from the same account highlighted $98.7 million in BTC sent to Binance in a separate leg, and prior weekend flows included close to $60 million in BTC and SOL routed to Binance and Coinbase.
Read as a package, the pattern is textbook market-maker positioning: park inventory on a CEX where it can be quoted or offloaded into strength, and short the same names on-chain to insulate the book from a mark-to-market hit if prices roll over. It is also the exact behaviour the desk’s CEO, Evgeny Gaevoy, has publicly described as the firm’s core business.
Wintermute’s Wider Picture
Wintermute is one of the largest liquidity providers in crypto, quoting more than 500 pairs across 70-plus exchanges. Gaevoy disclosed earlier this month that the firm’s average daily crypto trading volume has slipped from around $15 billion in 2025 to roughly $10 billion this year, a slowdown that has coincided with the desk’s expansion into prediction markets and its planned $1 billion push into high-frequency trading and AI data centres.
The Hyperliquid wallet is only a slice of that footprint, but it is the most visible one. Every deposit, withdrawal and position change is publicly indexable, which is why Onchain Lens, Arkham and other trackers keep it in view. The desk itself has previously pushed back on the idea that on-chain snapshots reveal a directional stance, arguing that its perp positions offset spot inventory sitting on centralized venues.
What to Watch Next
For traders, the actionable takeaways sit in three places. First, funding rates on the five names Wintermute is shorting, because a persistently negative funding print would confirm that the short side is now crowded enough to fund the rest of the book.
Second, open interest concentration on HYPE and XRP, both of which are running hot on spot and would be most exposed to a squeeze if the desk covers into a further leg up. Third, the wallet itself, since the same address will flash any unwind long before it hits the price tape.
Positions on Hyperliquid can turn over inside a single block. The $190.77 million short book is a snapshot, not a thesis, and the desk’s next move will show up on-chain before it shows up in any analyst note. For now, the read from the flow is that one of crypto’s largest market makers is willing to sit on a $5.85 million paper loss to keep its hedges on while the majors grind higher.
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