Report archive · 22.08.2026
Case No. 20260822 · 22.08.2026
Case № 20260822 · 22.08.2026 08:20 UTC · BTC $77,346 / ETH $2,435
analysis: Fable 5 by Anthropic on our own archive since February
Futures (Hyperliquid). Whales stand short BTC 2.4 times deeper than they're long: $430.8M against $183.1M. The frame is familiar — the news is in the flow, which has turned against it.
The weekly BTC tally is nearly flat — only $6M toward long — but the last day alone gave $73M the same way: the book has just reversed, sharply.
In ETH the short is twice the long: $403.2M against $189.1M. The flow is more consistent: $62M moved toward long over the week, and almost all of it landed in the last day. Both books are moving away from the short, not into it.
Leverage is cooling along with the flow: overleveraged wallets (8× or more to the account) hold $600.8M in positions, two-thirds of it long, and not one sits close to a margin call.
Options (Deribit). Two separate positions. Quiet accumulation: someone has been methodically collecting calls at a single strike just above the market on the nearest expiry — hundreds of contracts across more than a hundred and fifty small trades, two-thirds of the volume one way: the signature of a quiet build, not random flow. Blocks: in BTC three put spreads of the same pattern went through in a day — protection bought just under the market, paid for with puts sold deeper down; in ETH — two large put purchases at one September strike and a call spread higher up. Strikes, expiries and sizes are in the full version. The rest of the ETH tape is the crowd: seven and a half thousand small trades, no whale visible in them.
Money (the Hyperliquid border, 7 days, $250k threshold). A negative week: $135.96M came in, $180.29M went out — a net $44.3M left the exchange.
Inside it, two different currents. Cash (USDC through the bridge) runs nearly balanced, and what leaves settles mostly on exchange addresses — rotation between venues, not flight. Coins are another story: BTC through Unit is being carried out to players' own wallets, past the exchanges. To whom exactly, and in what tranches — in the full version.
This is positioning, not a direction forecast.
What the options market says. This is where you see what insurance against a price move costs. Today it costs less than the market actually moves: the option premium over realized movement is negative — −0.6 points in BTC and −2.7 in ETH. This camp is silent: protection is cheapening on both sides at once; options say nothing about the side of the move.
What the futures say. When there are more longs, they pay the shorts — that payment is called funding. The payment is rising: +0.0099% in BTC against +0.0021% a day earlier, and the basis is positive. This contradicts the whales: the long side of the perps is paying more and more — the flow stands against the whales' short and isn't backing off.
What the crowd is doing. These are retail accounts on Bybit perps — the camp opposite the top Hyperliquid wallets. In BTC retail is 53% long, the gap with the whales is +33.4 points — and over three days it moved only 5.7 points against a usual move of 11.5: quiet. This contradicts the whales: retail stands on the other side. In ETH — the event from THE GIST: the gap is compressing at a rare speed. This camp is ceasing to contradict the whales in ETH: either the crowd is turning to follow the money, or the money is trimming its own side.
Any signs of stress. We check whether anyone is being forced out. Among the top Hyperliquid whales — one forced closure of $2.3M over the day, mostly long. On OKX swaps $3.4M was liquidated in a day, only 52% of it shorts — against the almost entirely short cascades of the previous days; that's 18% of the week's volume, an even background. This camp is silent: there are no forced resolutions capable of moving price.
Cross-check in sum: futures and the crowd in BTC testify against the whales' short, in ETH the standoff is deflating, options and the stress markers are silent. Two independent sources of measurement — Hyperliquid perps and Deribit options — agree on both coins: this is conviction of positioning, not a direction forecast.
The classic index prints 31.8 out of 100 against 51.6 a week ago and 42.0 two days ago: by the 90-day-window measure across 283 alts, the market sits deep in bitcoin season.
Our barometer (Hyperliquid perps) sees something finer: alts hold 45.1% of open interest against 44.1% yesterday and 37.6% in May — the share keeps growing despite the "bitcoin season" of the classic. The overheating in long payments has deflated: hot funding in only 6.5% of coins against 13.3% yesterday and 84.0% the day before.
Retail in the top-10 alts is 67.4% long — hottest in DOGE (76.9%) and XRP (75.6%). Whales the opposite: the long share of their $1.19bn in alts is only 26.4%. Whales are structurally short in alts at all times — the signal lives not in the gap itself but in its CHANGE. Full table: indiciadesk.com/en/altseason
Continuation ⟳. The whales' short frame is intact, but thinning: the daily perp flow in both coins went toward long, and the overleveraged fuel is deflating. The structure "the market pressing up against the biggest players" is alive — it's just that, for the first time in a week, the players have started stepping out of it rather than adding to it.
Forecasts in play (the code counts): the three scenarios from yesterday stay open until tomorrow — no new verdicts on the day.
What this does NOT mean: neither whale capitulation nor a direction for price. Trimming a short can be booking part of a loss or managing margin, not a change of view — the deepest losses in the book haven't cut their side. And there is more fuel above the market than below it — that means a bigger RANGE of possible move for the same push, not a higher PROBABILITY.
🔒 In today's full RADAR: a fresh BTC long at the highest leverage in the book, which didn't exist a week ago — its size, entry and close-out boundary · the structure of the day — a quiet build of calls at one strike above the market: the strike and expiry inside.
ANALYST access → indiciadesk.com/en/agent
💎DEEP
Portraits of the day (Hyperliquid, snapshot 08:20 UTC). The top of the BTC book is still held by shorts — but a fresh long has appeared among the biggest positions.
Two shorts with the same signature at 5×. The first — $95.0M, entered at $65,312, uPnL −$14.7M, liquidation $122,847 (+59% from spot). The second — $72.3M, entered at $64,315, uPnL −$12.1M, liquidation $147,492 (+91%). Both stood the same side a week ago; the second has added since. Low leverage, distant boundaries: no mechanical threat — just an eight-figure paper loss that nobody is cutting. Who this is — below, in the Analyst section.
A fresh long at 40× — the nearest boundary in the book. A $70.3M position from $77,965 that didn't exist a week ago: 640.9 BTC added over the day, uPnL −$0.6M, liquidation $67,514 — only −13% from spot. The account ($10.6M) is an order of magnitude smaller than the position: the most aggressive leverage at the top of the book, and it plays against every large short in it.
A 20× short from levels below the market. Size $54.1M from $73,423, uPnL −$2.7M, liquidation $148,724 (+92%): entered far under spot, the loss moderate, the boundary safe.
A self-signed short. Size $48.3M at 10× from $77,446 — the only one at the top who entered near the current price and stands flat (+$0.09M); added 187.5 BTC over the day. Liquidation $91,223 (+18%) — the nearest among the shorts.
A reversal with no label. A $28.5M short at 5× from $73,864: a week ago the address stood on the opposite side. Liquidation $96,196 (+24%), uPnL −$1.3M.
ETH's poles. The biggest short — $100.0M at 5× from $2,016, uPnL −$17.1M — the deepest loss in the entire book: held for at least a week, and 2,144 ETH was added to it over the day. Next to it a $91.1M short with the same signature (−$12.9M) and an $87.3M short at 15× that REDUCED by 3,341.9 ETH over the day — the only large short in retreat. On the other side — a $61.3M long at 20× from $2,071 that wasn't there a week ago: uPnL +$9.1M, the biggest gain in the book, an address with no public label. The second long, $46.4M at 25×, added 2,475 ETH over the day (+$2.0M); a self-signed $24.1M short cut 647.5 ETH.
Structures over the day (our registry, venue — Deribit). In BTC three put spreads of one pattern went through: 28AUG sold 200× put $69,000 against bought 200× put $74,000 · 28AUG sold 200× put $69,000 against bought 200× put $75,000 · 25SEP sold 200× put $66,000 against bought 100× put $77,000. Protection bought just under the market, paid for with puts sold deeper down — the desk insures the pullback zone and accepts risk much lower.
The quiet build of the day. Someone has been methodically BUYING the $82,000 call on 28AUG — 812 contracts across 168 trades, 67% of the volume one way. The level isn't random: $82,000 is exactly where the gamma vacuum above the market begins.
In ETH the tracks are bigger: 15,000× put $2,100 bought on 25SEP and separately another 12,000× of the same strike, plus a 25SEP call spread — 3,000× call $2,600 against sold 3,000× call $2,900. Protection below and a capped upside — a pair typical of a market that has already risen. Market-maker anchor strength ≈ $203.9M (the sign is an estimate, and it shifts).
Cases in play (our registry, Deribit).
Case №546 · strangle ETH $1,000/$4,000 on 7,500 contracts to 25.06.2027. A put bought far below and a call far above — a position for a big move in either direction; net debit ≈ $530k, entered at spot $1,806. Day 48 today — spot has since moved well higher, closer to the call leg.
BTC $75,000 calls +5,093 (10 expiries) $78,000 calls +4,740 (12 expiries) $68,000 puts +4,732 (11 expiries) ETH $2,100 puts +37,317 (73% on 25SEP26) $2,600 calls +20,823 $2,000 puts +19,812The biggest pile in the book — ETH $2,100 puts for September: the same strike as in the day's block tracks. The build is coming from both sides — in blocks and quietly.
BTC whale flow on Hyperliquid over the week and over the day are two different stories: the weekly tally is nearly zero, while the day's move toward long is the biggest in the window. For most of the week the book crept into short and reversed only just now — the turn is fresh, and it is not yet a trend.
The crowd-whale gap in ETH stood at +41.5 points as recently as 19.08 — near the monthly maximum of the series; today it's +30.3 points. Compression at this speed the 44-day series has rarely seen — and it began right after the gap's maximum.
Changing of the guard. Abraxas Capital Mgmt (Heka Funds) stood the same side in BTC a week ago at a slightly smaller size — it added, and today it's adding ETH against the move: the fund's view hasn't changed. Fasanara Capital is the only large one cutting: its ETH short shrank noticeably over the day, while its 20× BTC short stands. Machi Big Brother is the week's fresh blood: a 40× BTC long that didn't exist seven days ago, plus a topped-up ETH long. The unlabelled ETH long with the book's biggest gain also appeared only this week: a build is under way on the long side that a week ago didn't exist at all.
Max pain and the MM corridor (composed Deribit and Bybit book). The market makers' break-even corridor in BTC is $60,000–78,000: spot $77,346 stands one step from the upper edge. Max pain of the whole book is $69,000 — well below the market; by our study of 334 expiries an exact match of price and max pain happens only about a third of the time — a weak marker, not a prophecy (indiciadesk.com/en/docket).
The nearest expiry, 23.08, carries a rare divergence between the books: the composed max pain is $72,000, but Deribit sees it at $69,000 and Bybit at $77,000. Both of this expiry's walls sit under spot: put $65,500 (91 contracts) and call $69,000 (672). September 25.09 is the main mass: max pain $70,000, put wall $60,000 (5,529 contracts) far below, call wall $70,000 (11,310) — the level that was meant to be a ceiling was passed long ago.
ETH: the MM corridor is $2,150–2,460 — spot $2,435 under the upper edge; max pain of the book $2,340. On 23.08 the put wall $1,880 (1,146 contracts) sits deep below, the call wall $2,420 (6,136) — one step under spot. On 25.09 the book is wide: put $2,100 (30,894) — the strike being stacked with puts — and call $3,000 (32,718).
PCR in time (Deribit). BTC put/call over the month 0.44, over the week 0.54, now 0.56 — downside protection was built up all month. ETH is unmoved: 0.52 a month ago, 0.53 now.
Two exchanges, two books (tenors up to 30 days). BTC put/call Deribit 0.73 against Bybit 1.18, ETH 0.85 against 1.24 — the Bybit book is noticeably heavier in puts; who stands behind it we don't know, so we hang no "whale" or "retail" labels on it. Retail on ETH perps, meanwhile, is 65% long.
The price of vol by tenor (Deribit, percentiles of hourly history since February). BTC: weekly vol 47.0 — 62nd percentile, monthly 41.3 — the middle of its own history. ETH: 2-day 64.3 — 67th, weekly 65.2 — 63rd, monthly 55.7 — 47th: short protection is dearer than usual, far protection isn't. The priced daily move: BTC ±2.2%, ETH ±3.0%; weekly — ±5.8% and ±7.8%.
Gamma and the shot zones (our calculation, build_gex). Empty above at $82,000–84,000 — a band 2.4% wide from edge to edge: no market-maker hedge there, a break moves fast. Thin below at $71,000–72,000, a band 1.4% wide. Stress test ±2%: at −2% ($75,705) the book is still in positive gamma — a pullback gets damped; at +2% ($78,795) spot sits under the $80,000 call wall. ETH: vacuum above at $2,600–2,700, a band 3.8% wide, and below at $2,200–2,250, 2.3% wide; at −2% ($2,380) gamma is positive, at +2% ($2,478) — under the $2,500 call wall.
Fuel (Hyperliquid cascade map, snapshot $77,445, 08:16 UTC). Long fuel below is $20.7M in the $73,573–75,896 band; the short fuel above is bigger — $25.4M in $78,994–81,317, and the band's upper edge runs into the gamma vacuum. ETH is nearly empty: $1.6M in $2,316–2,389 and $1.8M in $2,487–2,560. Historically the tail of a cascade is often a turning point, but statistically this is NOT proven (|t|<1.3) — an observation, not a signal.
🆓TAIL
Pendulum · Wheel — standing position: +$208 on the day · +$6,567 in total · counted since 11.05.2026.
signal trades win rate last total since Dust Strategy V2 37 5% −$1,125 +$92,969 21.03 Dust Strategy V1 31 10% −$1,125 +$37,031 20.03 Skew 2.0 V2 28 39% +$7,867 +$11,819 26.05 Volatility Convergence V3 16 44% −$634 +$7,614 26.05 Fear Flash V2 17 41% +$3,153 +$5,907 16.05Deepest in the red: Wheel Trail V8 −$6,021, Wheel Trail V6 −$5,064 and Flat Wings −$3,049 — all three are built for a reversal, while the market has walked one way for weeks. The mirror lesson at the top: the most profitable signal, Dust Strategy V2, wins only 5% of its 37 trades — rare big wins cover dozens of small losses. Win rate isn't money.
No new verdicts: all three scenarios from 21.08 stay open until 23.08, 11:31 UTC — "The corridor holds under the upper edge" (45%), "Burn-up through the short fuel" (30%), "Drop into the vacuum below max pain" (25%). The code will close them tomorrow against spot history.
What the code counted on the conclusions: yesterday the system saw a "risk tilt up" — BTC added 0.9% on the day: it rose, but below the threshold, so the conclusion was NOT credited. A week ago it saw the same tilt — BTC +22.7%, direction confirmed.
By type across the registry: the weakest is "the corridor holds" in BTC — over 150 cases it came true 36% of the time, worse than a coin toss; the system doesn't use this type as a standalone forecast.
Not investment advice and not a recommendation to trade. Derivatives trading carries a high risk of loss; INDICIA DESK is a research publisher, not a licensed adviser under MAS, the SEC or the FCA — decisions and their consequences are yours.
Radar is assembled automatically from live Deribit / Hyperliquid / OKX data · time-stamped snapshot. A journal of the system's decisions, not investment advice. © 2026 INDICIA DESK.