Bitcoin whales build long positions as funding stays deeply negative
Long bias from the largest perpetual traders on Hyperliquid has built steadily through February, March and April, with the position now leaning aggressively long as bitcoin tags $80,000 and US-Iran talks resume.
By Shaurya Malwa|Edited by Sheldon Reback Apr 26, 2026, 2:13 p.m. Make preferred on
What to know:
- Large traders on Hyperliquid have shifted from net short to their most aggressively net-long bitcoin positioning since early March, coinciding with the coin’s climb from the mid-$60,000s to near $80,000.
- This group of holders, which typically runs positions above $10 million, has historically led spot bitcoin moves by days or weeks, and the current long bias aligns with 47 straight days of negative funding rates that leave shorts paying longs.
- With U.S. stocks at record highs, oil and Treasury yields easing, any macro-driven breakout could trigger a short squeeze that either richly rewards or rapidly unwinds these Hyperliquid whale longs.
The biggest traders on Hyperliquid have been building a long bitcoin BTC$78,118.74 position for two months, and the price chart is starting to break their way.
Glassnode data shows whale positioning on Hyperliquid, the onchain perpetual futures exchange, flipped from net short to net long in early March and has stayed long ever since, with the size of the long bias increasing through April.
The shift coincides with bitcoin grinding higher from the mid-$60,000s in February to a brush near $80,000 earlier this week.
Hyperliquid has, in the past year, become the onchain venue of choice for traders running large positions, and a sustained long bias from that cohort tends to lead spot bitcoin price action by days to weeks rather than follow it.
The flip to net long in early March preceded the recovery from the mid-$60,000s. The positioning is now the most aggressively long it has been across the dataset.
Bitcoin perpetual swap funding across major exchanges sits at -0.13% on a seven-day basis according to Coinglass, meaning shorts are paying longs to keep their positions open.
That negative funding has held for roughly 47 consecutive days, one of the longest stretches of bearish derivatives positioning on record. Sustained negative funding matched with aggressive long positioning from Hyperliquid whales is the technical setup that produces short squeezes when spot prices break higher.
In traditional finance, the S&P 500 closed at a record high on Friday, capping its longest weekly advance since 2024.
In Pakistan, meantime, the weekend's talks between Iran and the U.S. didn't take place. President Donald Trump canceled his delegation's trip to Islamabad after the Iranian foreign minister left the country before the U.S. group even set off.
Treasury yields dropped as the Justice Department closed its probe into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, potentially clearing the path for Kevin Warsh's confirmation as the next Fed leader.
Quite where those developments leave the Hyperliquid long positions will become apparent over the coming hours and days.
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