An anonymous Tornado Cash whale deposited $7 million into a Hyperliquid wallet this morning, preparing to open a large-scale long position in Bitcoin. According to Lookonchain and Onchain Lens, this wallet uses a radical 20x leverage and plans to profit from Bitcoin over Ethereum.

Large holders typically transfer funds through coin mixers in order to move capital privately or prepare for cashing out. What makes this case unusual is that the flow of these funds was previously traced back to a series of addresses that belonged to hackers who stole $290 million from the derivatives platform Drift Protocol in April 2026.

Some blockchain researchers warn that it is not advisable to rush to draw conclusions about the source of funds. At present, there is still no direct evidence: Tornado Cash is indeed capable of concealing traces well, and the association between wallets and specific hacking incidents is based only on an indirect match in transaction volume.

A very complex plan (even for North Korea)

After extracting 3,100 ETH from Tornado Cash at a completely new address, this unidentified trader subsequently exchanged all of the Ethereum for USDC (equivalent to $6.92 million) in the spot market through CoW Swap. Subsequently, this funds were transferred to the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid to be used as collateral for future transactions.

At that exchange, instead of trying to guess the market trend, this whale investor split their collateral in half and utilized 20x full leverage to establish a position with a total value of approximately $26 million. This position included a long Bitcoin position worth $12.84 million, entered at a price of $75,762.2, as well as a short Ethereum position of 5,740 ETH, valued at $12.83 million.

As of now, this bet is still valid. Bitcoin remains near its recent high points, and the floating profit from the long positions of BTC has fully covered the losses of the short positions in the altcoins. In addition to the fees from holding funds, this trader can also continue to collect regular premiums paid by other traders for holding the short positions in ETH.

This is a textbook example of a dominant position pairing trade. Investors don't care whether the entire industry is rising or falling; the only thing that matters is the price difference—namely, the difference in price between these two largest cryptocurrencies.

If Bitcoin rises faster than Ethereum, or if Ethereum falls more sharply during a general market downturn, this trade will result in a profit.

However, no matter how sophisticated the mathematical models are, a 20x leverage always comes with high risk. If Ethereum experiences a significant surge while Bitcoin remains within its range, the Hyperliquid full-position margin system will automatically close the position within seconds, resulting in investors losing a total of $6.92 million. The liquidation prices for this position are $37,014.09 for Bitcoin and $3,343.60 for Ethereum.

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