Crypto Whale Places $445M Bitcoin Short While Going Long on MELANIA Token

Bitcoin (BTC) has remained stable since last Tuesday, rebounding above $84,000 over the weekend. However, a crypto whale has taken a contrarian approach, placing a massive $445 million short bet against BTC while simultaneously opening a leveraged long position on the MELANIA token.

According to Hyperliquid and Lookonchain, the whale’s BTC perpetual futures short is highly leveraged at 40x, with a liquidation price of $86,000. The position has so far generated an unrealized gain of $1.3 million.

The move sparked buzz on X (formerly Twitter), where pseudonymous trader CBB attempted to rally traders to liquidate the whale’s position.

“11 hours ago, @Cbb0fe publicly formed a team to hunt this whale who shorted BTC with 40x leverage. Just one hour later, the team was in action, pushing BTC above $84,690,” Lookonchain reported.

As BTC’s price climbed, the whale was forced to deposit $5 million USDC to increase margin and avoid liquidation. However, despite the attempted squeeze, the short position remained intact.

Whale’s Bullish Bet on MELANIA Token

In addition to the BTC short, the whale has also opened a 5x leveraged long on MELANIA perpetual futures, anticipating a price surge in the memecoin. Reports suggest MELANIA is marketed by MKT World LLC, a Florida-based company linked to Melania Trump, the wife of U.S. President Donald Trump.

Hyperliquid Highlights Transparency in Trading

The trading platform Hyperliquid commented on the high-profile trades, emphasizing the transparency of its system.

“When a whale shorts $450M+ BTC and wants a public audience, it’s only possible on Hyperliquid. The decentralized future is here,” the platform stated on X.

Hyperliquid recently made headlines after a major trader executed a “liquidation arbitrage” strategy, extracting floating profits and causing forced liquidations, which ultimately shifted risk to the platform’s HLP vault.