Large Bitcoin Investors Establish Long Positions Amid Prolonged Negative Funding

Major traders on Hyperliquid have been accumulating long positions in bitcoin for the past two months, and the price trend is starting to favor them. According to Glassnode data, the positioning of whales on Hyperliquid, a leading on-chain perpetual futures exchange, shifted from net short to net long in early March and has remained long since, with the long bias intensifying through April. This shift coincides with bitcoin's gradual ascent from the mid-$60,000 range in February to nearly $80,000 earlier this week. Hyperliquid has become the preferred on-chain platform for large traders over the past year, and a sustained long bias from this group often precedes spot bitcoin price movements by days or weeks. The early March shift to net long preceded the recovery from the mid-$60,000s, and the current positioning is the most aggressively long on record. Meanwhile, bitcoin perpetual swap funding across major exchanges is at -0.13% on a seven-day basis, indicating that shorts are paying longs to maintain their positions. This negative funding has persisted for approximately 47 consecutive days, one of the longest periods of bearish derivatives positioning on record. The combination of sustained negative funding and aggressive long positioning from Hyperliquid whales creates a technical setup that can lead to short squeezes when spot prices rise. In other news, the S&P 500 closed at a record high on Friday, marking its longest weekly advance since 2024. However, the scheduled talks between Iran and the US over the weekend did not take place, and the impact of these developments on Hyperliquid's long positions will become clearer in the coming hours and days.