HYPE Whale Sends $37.8M to Coinbase as Biggest Short Holds

The short version

HYPE whale: three wallets that look like one owner sent 494,310 HYPE, worth $37.83 million, to Coinbase on Sunday, October 25, after unstaking much of it from Kinetiq about a month ago.
The stack is close to two days of Coinbase’s HYPE volume, a five-minute sell wick to $72.73 hit Coinbase on Monday at 03:35 UTC, and the biggest HYPE short on Hyperliquid still holds $51.83 million and keeps adding.
The crew is watching $74.36, Saturday’s low, as the line HYPE has to hold, with $82.47 as the level to reclaim before the November 6 team unlock.

A HYPE whale just moved a big stack to the exit. Three wallets that look like one owner sent 494,310 HYPE, worth $37.83 million, to Coinbase over Sunday, and on-chain tracker Lookonchain flagged it at 02:18 UTC on Monday. HYPE trades at $76.82 at the time of writing, up 1.5% in 24 hours and 22% below its $98 top from September 23.

Lookonchain put it bluntly:

So who is this whale, is the HYPE already sold, and why is the biggest short on Hyperliquid still sitting on more than $50 million of bets against it?

Who Sent $37.8M of HYPE to Coinbase?

The HYPE whale is not named, but the three wallets move like one owner. Each one sent a small test amount to its own Coinbase deposit address first, then the rest, all within about ten hours on Sunday, October 25. Here’s what the Arkham history shows:

HYPE whale wallets table: 0x2824 sent 207,304 HYPE ($15.93M), 0x6130 sent 99,999 HYPE ($7.66M), 0x4980 sent 187,006 HYPE ($14.24M) to Coinbase, 494,310 HYPE ($37.83M) in total — HYPE whale Coinbase deposits Arkham via Lookonchain

Two of the links are hard. The second wallet was funded by the first one. The third wallet was funded from a different address, so it ties in on timing and pattern only, which is why Lookonchain says “possibly” the same whale.

Wallet one tells the most. About a month ago it redeemed 300,000 kHYPE, the staked HYPE token of liquid staking protocol Kinetiq, for 307,303 HYPE. Nobody unstakes, splits the coins over three wallets and lines up Coinbase deposits to hold for the long run.

Is the HYPE Whale Selling?

Probably, but a deposit is not a sale. Coins sent to an exchange can be sold, lent out, used as collateral or simply kept in custody, and Arkham can’t see what happens inside Coinbase.

Size is the problem. Coinbase traded 126,814 HYPE in the last 24 hours and averages about 252,000 HYPE a day over 30 days. The whale’s stack is close to two full days of Coinbase volume, so dumping it in one go on that book would push the price down hard.

There was one hint on Monday morning. At 03:35 UTC, about an hour after Lookonchain’s post, 24,444 HYPE changed hands on Coinbase in five minutes, almost a fifth of its whole day, and the price wicked down to $72.73 before closing that candle at $75.48. On Hyperliquid, HYPE never went below $75.31 in the same five minutes. That is someone selling into Coinbase’s thinner order book. Whether it was the whale, nobody can say from outside the exchange.

Timing adds to the pressure. Two of the three wallets got their HYPE three to four weeks ago, when it traded near $88 to $90, so the stack has lost about 13% since. And the next team unlock lands on November 6, when 9.92 million HYPE vests for Hyperliquid’s core contributors.

DISCOVER: HYPE Unlock on November 6: $765M on Paper. Can Buybacks Absorb It?

The Biggest HYPE Short Is Still Open

The largest short on HYPE hasn’t blinked. On Saturday, Lookonchain counted 715,334 HYPE short, worth $54.57 million, with $5.56 million of unrealized profit:

We pulled the same account from Hyperliquid’s own data on Monday. Hours after that post, the trader bought back 75,000 HYPE at around $75.50, locking in about $626,000. Since Saturday afternoon they have sold short again in small pieces at $76 to $77.50, about 34,400 HYPE in total.

Here’s the position now:

Size: 674,696 HYPE short, worth $51.83 million at 5x leverage.
Entry: $83.70, so $4.64 million of unrealized profit at $76.82.
Funding: $646,000 collected since the position opened, because longs have been paying shorts.
Liquidation: $101.12, 32% above the price and above HYPE’s $98 all-time high.

So the two biggest HYPE players on-chain point the same way this week: one moves $37.8 million to an exchange, the other keeps topping up a $50 million short. The short is not a forecast, and it can be hedging spot HYPE held somewhere else, but it isn’t sitting on its hands.

HYPE Price Analysis: Can $74 Hold?

HYPE price daily chart HYPE/USDC with 50 and 200 EMA, October 25 deposit day shaded, resistance $82.47 and support $74.36 — HYPEUSDC Chart 1D Hyperliquid

So far, yes. The HYPE price bounced off $74.36 on Saturday and again near $74.83 on Monday, and it trades at $76.82. But every bounce since October 12 has stalled lower, and HYPE sits under its 50-day exponential moving average (EMA), a trend line that weights recent prices more, at $81.57. The 200-day EMA is far below at $67.50.

In the bull case, a daily close above $82.47, the October 21 high and the 50-day EMA area, would show the market has absorbed the whale’s stack.
In the base case, HYPE ranges between $74.36 and $82.47 into the November 6 unlock, while traders watch Coinbase for more large sells.
In the bear case, a daily close under $74.36 opens a slide toward the 200-day EMA at $67.50, a move that would hand the big short a lot more profit.

EXPLORE: On-Chain Metrics That Matter: MVRV, Realized Price and Exchange Flows

Whatever happens next, the whale has done the moving. The next tell is on Coinbase’s tape, and $74.36 is the line that shows whether the selling is real.

Coinbase HYPE Hyperliquid Kinetiq On-chain Whales

Written by

Teddy

In crypto since 2016. Covers altcoins and the daily market. When not trading, out climbing and traveling.