Whale Opens Massive $100M ETH Short at 23x Leverage – Liquidation Just 2% Away

A tracked onchain wallet has opened a 23x leveraged short position on ether worth $100.33 million via Hyperliquid, with the trade facing automatic liquidation if ETH climbs just $41 from its entry price.

Key Takeaways

• Wallet 0x50b3 opened a $100.33M ETH short at 23x leverage on Hyperliquid.
• The position liquidates if ETH reaches $2,149.84, less than 2% above the ~$2,109 entry price.
• Hyperliquid processed over $176B in 30-day trading volume as nine-figure leveraged bets have intensified.

A Nine-Figure Bet Against Ether

Wallet address 0x50b3 opened a 23x leveraged short on 47,604 ether (ETH) at an implied entry price of approximately $2,109, putting $100.33 million in notional exposure on the line against ethereum’s price. The liquidation price is set at $2,149.84, meaning the position faces a forced close if ETH rises just $41, a move of less than 2% from the entry point.

At 23x leverage, the trader’s effective margin covers roughly 4.3% of the position size under standard exchange mechanics, and with ethereum trading near multi-month levels, the cushion is deliberately thin. It is a high-conviction, high-risk bet that ETH does not push higher from here.

Large leveraged short positions have become quite recurrent on Hyperliquid, with a trader most recently booking $7.5 million in profits across ZEC and HYPE longs on the platform before opening a $38.6 million ETH long at 25x leverage.

The pattern is part of a larger, overarching concentration of nine-figure leveraged activity on Hyperliquid, with the platform having already processed over $176 billion in 30-day trading volume (with open interest exceeding $8 billion heading into late May). Not only that, its revenue for the past 12 months has crossed $896 million, and institutional players have increasingly used it for positions of this scale precisely because the onchain settlement removes counterparty risk.

Lastly, with Ether trading in the $2,050–$2,150 range all through May, if the asset is able to push above $2,149.84 before the trader adds margin (or manually reduces the position), the liquidation will be automatic, thus adding the full 47,604 ETH back to available market supply in a single event. The identity of wallet 0x50b3 has not been established.