Big Shorts, Small Risks? Not All Whale Moves Are What They Seem

Over the past 24 hours, two massive short positions on BTC, ETH, and SOL caught the crypto community’s eye—totaling 337 million yuan (~$46.6M) in value.

At first glance, it looked like two more "big gamblers" had entered the arena. But there’s more than meets the eye.

The two addresses—0x5b5d...8c060 and 0xB83D...D6E36—opened 5x and 3x short positions respectively. While the position sizes are massive, the leverage is low and the margin is deep—a classic institutional play.

And that’s exactly who they are: both addresses belong to Abraxas Capital, a London-based asset management firm known for strategic, hedged positions. In this case, they recently bought large amounts of ETH and simultaneously opened shorts on Hyperliquid to collect funding fees—a market-neutral strategy rather than a bearish bet.

Why This Matters for Traders

Many retail traders messaged, asking: “Why not post this massive short?” The answer: context is everything.

This isn’t a high-risk directional bet—it’s a structured institutional play, not directly comparable to retail speculation. Highlighting such moves without context could mislead average traders into thinking there’s a market-wide bearish signal.

Remember, there’s only one “Hyperliquid’s high win rate brother” who banked $21.12M+ in profits with wild, high-leverage trades.

Before jumping to conclusions, always ask:

Who owns the wallet?

What’s the strategy behind the move?

Is this trade relevant to my level of risk and capital?