Enormous XRP Short Opened by Wintermute

Market-making firm Wintermute has significantly increased its bearish exposure on Hyperliquid and XRP among its largest short positions, according to on-chain data tracked by Onchain Lens.

The firm’s total short exposure has experienced a very sharp increase. Its top five short positions include Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana, Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token and XRP. 

Wintermute’s XRP short is currently valued at more than $10 million. 

Onchain Lens reported that Wintermute had increased its overall short exposure by roughly $45 million since its previous update.

Notably, Wintermute’s tracked positions were sitting at a combined unrealized loss

XRP’s tumultuous week 

XRP is up 49.24% over seven days while open interest stands at $3.61 billion. There is a very large amount of leveraged positioning. 

Binance’s general account long/short ratio is 2.5651, while OKX is at 2.08. Binance’s top-trader ratios are even higher: 2.8081 based on accounts and 2.2136 based on positions. In short, derivatives positioning shown here is decisively leaning toward longs (in sharp contrast to Wintermute).

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The XRP short is large in absolute terms, but it is relatively small compared with the $3.61 billion total XRP open interest. It accounts for only about 0.28% of total OI. 

However, it is worth noting that XRP has so far failed to sustain its momentum like during its previous rallies. 

Over the past 24 hours, $21.42 million of XRP positions were liquidated, with $12.47 million coming from longs versus $8.95 million from shorts. So longs have actually suffered more now that the cryptocurrency’s momentum is waning. 

If XRP continues rising, Wintermute’s position could become part of the squeeze mechanism. But if XRP loses momentum, the crowded longs could make potential downside more painful.