For the past two months, the biggest traders on Hyperliquid have been building a long position in bitcoin, and the price chart is now showing signs of breaking in their favor. According to Glassnode data, the whale positioning on Hyperliquid, a leading on-chain perpetual futures exchange, shifted from net short to net long in early March and has remained long ever since, with the long bias growing stronger throughout April. This shift coincides with bitcoin's gradual rise from the mid-$60,000s in February to nearly $80,000 earlier this week. 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 days or weeks.
The flip to net long in early March 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, 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 from Hyperliquid whales creates a technical setup that can lead to short squeezes when spot prices break higher.
In other news, the S&P 500 closed at a record high on Friday, marking its longest weekly advance since 2024. The weekend's scheduled talks between Iran and the US did not take place, and developments such as the Justice Department's closure of its probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell may impact the Hyperliquid long positions in the coming hours and days.