Dormant Whale Wakes Up With $8.8M USDC Deposit and 10x Short on HYPE!

A dormant on-chain whale identified as 0x519c has re-entered the market after a month of silence, depositing 8.8 million USDC into Hyperliquid and immediately opening a 10x leveraged short on 175,082 HYPE tokens — a position worth approximately $7.62 million at entry.

The move is notable not just for its size but for its timing and conviction: a 10x short on a mid-cap DeFi token after a prolonged period of inactivity signals a deliberate, high-confidence directional bet rather than routine portfolio rebalancing. On-chain data indicates the whale is continuing to add to the short, suggesting the position is still being built.

For HYPE traders, a single leveraged whale of this scale can exert meaningful downward pressure on price — both through the short itself and through the liquidation cascades that can follow if the position moves in the whale's favour.