For two months, Hyperliquid's largest traders have been accumulating long positions in bitcoin, with the price chart starting to reflect this trend. According to Glassnode data, the positioning of whales on Hyperliquid, a blockchain-based perpetual futures exchange, shifted from net short to net long in early March and has remained long since, with the long bias intensifying throughout 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 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-$60,000 range, with the current positioning being the most aggressively long on record.
Meanwhile, bitcoin perpetual swap funding across major exchanges remains negative at -0.13% on a seven-day basis, according to Coinglass, 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 by Hyperliquid whales creates a technical setup that can lead to short squeezes when spot prices rise. In other news, the S&P 500 reached a record high on Friday, marking its longest weekly gain since 2024. The scheduled talks between Iran and the US in Pakistan over the weekend did not take place, and Treasury yields fell after the Justice Department closed its investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, potentially paving the way for Kevin Warsh's confirmation as the next Fed leader. The impact of these developments on Hyperliquid's long positions will become clearer in the coming hours and days.