Mysterious 50x ETH Whale Now Betting on LINK

In recent weeks, the crypto community has been attracted by a mysterious bet on Ethereum (ETH) with 50x leverage by a large investor, who now seems to have shifted his interest to the token Chainlink (LINK). This whale, endowed with huge funds, continues to make large trades, raising many questions among analysts and traders. Why did it suddenly decide to switch from Ethereum to LINK?

A possible explanation for this trend could be the growing interest in the Chainlink protocol, used to integrate smart contracts with real-world data. LINK has recently strengthened its position, making it an attractive asset for institutional investors. Such significant bets with 50x leverage could indicate confidence in the token's growth potential.

Cryptocurrency trader, whose large-scale Ethereum exchange tested Hyperliquid's limits on 12 March, has now opened another multimillion-dollar position, this time on Chainlink (LINK), as on-chain data shows.

On 14 March, an anonymous whale dubbed 'ETH 50x Big Guy' on X opened long positions on LINK for about $31 million with 10x leverage, according to Web3 analytics service Lookonchain.

According to Lookonchain, the whale placed bets on Hyperliquid and GMX, two popular perpetual options exchanges. It also accumulated about $12 million in LINK in spots.

In the hours that followed, the whale gradually reduced its holdings in LINK through small swaps converted into stablecoins, on-chain data show.

Huge Profits in Trading

On March 12, an unidentified trader deliberately liquidated a long position on ETH worth approximately $200 million, causing a loss of $4 million to Hyperliquid's (HLP) liquidity pool. The trader's profit was more than $1.8 million.

According to Lookonchain, the trader earned nearly $17 million in the last month on Hyperliquid.

The episode highlights the challenges faced by perpetual trading platforms such as Hyperliquid, which allow traders to open long or short positions with very high leverage.

Hyperliquid stated that the trader's actions do not qualify as an exploit, but represent a predictable consequence of its platform's dynamics under extreme conditions.

In response to the losses, Hyperliquid announced on 13 March that it will revise its collateralisation rules for traders with open positions, to protect the platform from similar cases in the future.

Launched in 2024, Hyperliquid's perpetual options exchange has captured 70 per cent of market share, surpassing competitors such as GMX and dYdX, according to a January report by asset manager VanEck.

Chainlink's Role in the Market

Chainlink (LINK), the most popular decentralised oracle service, has seen the price of its native LINK token rise more than 150% in the weeks since Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election.

However, it has since given back much of those gains, falling from nearly $30 per token in December to less than $14 as of 17 March, according to CoinGecko data.

Currently, Chainlink's market capitalisation is about $8.7 billion. However, it should be remembered that cryptocurrencies remain high-risk assets and large investors' shares may be part of more complex strategies, considering the volatility of the market.

These dynamics may also suggest that large investors see long-term growth potential for Chainlink, as part of the development of the DeFi sector. All these factors make LINK's future interesting and full of uncertainty, opening up new opportunities for crypto market participants.