For the past two months, the biggest traders on Hyperliquid have been accumulating a substantial long position in bitcoin, and recent price movements are starting to favor their stance. According to Glassnode data, the positioning of whales on Hyperliquid, a prominent on-chain perpetual futures exchange, shifted from net short to net long in early March and has remained so, with the long bias intensifying throughout April.
This shift has coincided with bitcoin's gradual ascent from the mid-$60,000 range in February to a recent high near $80,000. Notably, Hyperliquid has become the go-to 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 several days to weeks. The early March flip 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 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 surge higher. In other news, the S&P 500 closed at a record high on Friday, marking its longest weekly advance since 2024. The scheduled talks between Iran and the US over the weekend did not take place, and developments such as the closure of the Justice Department's probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell may have implications for the Hyperliquid long positions in the coming hours and days.