Wintermute Adds $10M+ XRP Short as Hyperliquid Exposure Grows

Wintermute Boosts Hyperliquid XRP Short

Wintermute, the crypto market-making firm, has sharply increased its bearish exposure on the Hyperliquid derivatives platform, with an XRP short position now valued at more than $10 million. On-chain data tracked by Onchain Lens shows that XRP ranks among the firm's five largest shorts, alongside Ethereum, Bitcoin, Solana and Hyperliquid's native HYPE token. Wintermute's total short exposure has climbed by roughly $45 million since its previous update, according to the same on-chain data. The altcoin's broader market backdrop remained heated, with XRP up 49.24% over seven days and total open interest at $3.61 billion as of the latest reading, reflecting a large amount of leveraged positioning.

Long Biases Clash With Wintermute's Book

The XRP short is large in absolute terms, but it remains relatively small against the broader derivatives backdrop, representing only about 0.28% of the $3.61 billion total open interest. Current positioning data skews heavily toward longs, with Binance's general account long/short ratio at 2.5651 and OKX at 2.08, while Binance's top-trader ratios stand at 2.8081 by accounts and 2.2136 by positions. That lean creates a market structure where a continued rally could force short sellers to cover, but a loss of momentum could leave crowded longs exposed. 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, indicating that bullish positions have already felt more pain as the move loses steam.

COINOTAG Engine Weighs Squeeze Versus Long Sweep

COINOTAG's proprietary 42-indicator composite S/R scoring engine rates the $1.4753 support at 83/100, reinforced by a flip from resistance to support, high-volume node and MACD cross signals, with a second strong floor at $1.3605 also scoring 83/100. The engine puts $1.6184 resistance at 66/100, driven by R2 and Fibonacci confluence, while the RSI at 81.50 flags overbought conditions and funding of 0.0060% remains low despite the crowd leaning long. A break above $1.6184 would likely invalidate the bearish thesis and pressure short sellers, while a slip through $1.4753 could accelerate long liquidation.