Everyone can see the whales are short BTCalmost nobody notices that not one camp of witnesses stood with them today.
Case № 20260906 · 06.09.2026 08:18 UTC · BTC$79,832 / ETH$2,498 · analysis: Fable 5.1 by Anthropic
📅YESTERDAY
The code closed no scenario today: six forecasts remain in play — three from 04.09 ran to term this morning, three more from 05.09 stand until tomorrow. We publish verdicts only once the code has computed them from spot history, so they'll be in tomorrow's issue.
What's visible without a verdict: yesterday the system saw the risk tilted down, and BTC made +0.2% over the day — the fall built into the positioning didn't happen, again.
⚡THE GIST
• The Hyperliquid perp whales reversed over the day: the week's drift toward long was overwritten by a $45M move back into short, and the BTC tilt deepened to 3.1 times short-over-long against 2.3 yesterday.
• The Deribit options book, meanwhile, keeps quietly stacking calls exactly where price stands: more than 15,000 contracts over the week at three neighbouring strikes around $80,000, in small lots and outside the blocks.
• Spot BTC ETFs are buying in a thicker stream than a week earlier — $987M against $924M; in ETH the same week's flow thinned almost fourfold.
• Insurance got pricier overnight without ceasing to be cheap: ETH two-day vol climbed from the 2nd percentile of its own hourly history since February to the 14th.
• The split is the widest of the week: perp whales and option whales disagree in both assets, and not one outside camp of witnesses stands on the whales' side today.
• 📊 Our Polygon — Pendulum: standing position, +$240 on the day, +$8,641 in total since 11.05.
• 📊 Our Polygon — signals: best — Dust Strategy V2 +$90,719 at a 5% win rate · worst — Wheel Trail V8 −$7,938. Table at the bottom.
🐋WHALES: WHAT CHANGED — three arenas
Arena one — Hyperliquid futures. The top whales stand mostly short in both assets, and over the day that tilt got deeper, not shallower. In BTC the short is 3.1 times the long — yesterday it was 2.3. The whole weekly shift toward long was eaten by one last day. In ETH the direction hasn't changed all week: a methodical build of the short at an even pace, no spike. Overleveraged whales under watch: 51 against 56 yesterday, and 69% of them stand long. None is anywhere near a margin call: there's fuel under the market, nobody has lit it.
Arena two — Deribit options. Two separate whale positions here, and today they look in different directions. The first — quiet accumulation in small lots outside the blocks. In BTC the book stacks only the upside: calls at three strikes around the current price. In ETH it's the opposite, both sides at once — calls above the market and puts below, and the puts together came to nearly one and a half times the calls. The second — the snapshot's block trades. One recognised today, in BTC: a put spread that pays as long as price holds above its lower strike. In ETH the snapshot showed no block structures — none detected. Strikes, sizes and dates are in the paid part.
Arena three — money at the exchange border. Cash and coins are moving in opposite directions, and the main move is in cash. The "bridge" channel is USDC cash: over seven days $101M came in and $36M went out — nearly three times more entered than left. The "Unit" channel is the coins themselves: in BTC withdrawals slightly exceeded deposits; in ETH and SOL it was the reverse, a small inflow. Most of the cash outflow — $22.5M of the $36M — settled on exchange deposit addresses. The money isn't just leaving Hyperliquid; it's going where the coin can be sold. Border snapshot 06.09, 08:29 UTC.
This is positioning, not a direction forecast.
🧭CROSS-CHECK — five camps of witnesses
What the funds are doing. Spot ETFs are the only camp that measures purchases of the coin itself, not a leveraged position; the flow figures come from SoSoValue. Funds trade on business days only, so there are no fresh numbers for the weekend: the last trading day on record is Friday 04.09. Over the week 31.08–04.09 BTC funds took in $987M against $924M the week before: the flow isn't just holding, it's thickening slightly. ETH is the reverse — $218M against $824M a week earlier, thinned almost fourfold. The BTC buying came above all from BlackRock's IBIT and Fidelity's FBTC. This contradicts the whales: institutions are buying the coin itself exactly where the whales hold short.
What the options market says. This camp measures one thing: what insurance costs on the Deribit book. Our fear and greed index stands at 87 out of 100 — the same as yesterday; that's extreme greed. The greed comes from quiet, not from a rally. BTC two-day vol sits in the 24th percentile of its own hourly history since February: cheaper than in three quarters of all hours on record. Overnight it lifted off what was nearly the floor, but it's still far from normal levels. This contradicts the whales: the whales hold short, and the book is barely paying for fear of a fall.
What the futures say. This camp measures who pays whom to hold a position. BTC funding on Hyperliquid is +0.010% in eight-hour terms against +0.006% yesterday: longs are paying shorts more than a day ago — the leveraged crowd got greedier, not more careful (what funding is). The BTC futures basis pulled up to −7 from −33 yesterday: the term price has nearly levelled with spot. This contradicts the whales: both measures moved over the day in the direction opposite to the whales' position.
What the crowd is doing. This camp measures how retail accounts stand against the whales. On Bybit perps 67% of ETH accounts stand long, 55% in BTC; over the day the picture barely moved. The whales stand mostly short in both assets, so the distance between them and retail stayed wide. The gap itself is structural and almost always present — the event here is its motion, not its existence. This camp is silent: it didn't change over the day, so it adds no new information today.
Any signs of stress. This camp measures whether anyone has already been forced out of the market. Among the top Hyperliquid whales, no forced closure over the day — yesterday there was one. On OKX swaps $177k was liquidated, 69% of it longs; that's 3% of the whole week's volume — an even background, no acceleration. This camp is silent: no stress was added over the day.
Again: this is positioning, not a direction forecast.
🌡ALTSEASON — the classic and our barometer
The classic altseason index stands at 38.2 out of 100 — still bitcoin-season territory, but over the day it jumped six points from 31.7: most alts are closing the gap on BTC for the first time this week.
Our barometer watches money, not prices, and counts it from the Hyperliquid perp registry. Alts' share of open interest is 43.9% — $4.85B of the whole market's $11.05B.
Hot funding covers 82% of contracts against 87% yesterday — the heat is slowly coming off.
Retail in the top-10 coins stands 66.4% long; the hottest are XRP and DOGE, both above 76%.
Whales in alts are structurally short: only 34.5% long across $1.43B of positions, the biggest of them in HYPE. That gap is permanent; the signal is in its CHANGE — and over the day it didn't move at all.
Full barometer: indiciadesk.com/en/altseason
⚖️VERDICT OF THE DAY
continuation ⟳ — the structure is the same as yesterday, but one part of it hardened over the day: the whales deepened their BTC short at the very moment three independent camps of witnesses — the funds, the options book and funding — moved the other way.
This is the widest split of the week. Perp whales and option whales disagree in both assets, and not one outside witness backs the whales today.
Forecasts this week: 6 in play; the code closed no verdicts over the day.
What this does NOT mean. It isn't a claim that BTC goes up against the whales. A split between the sources of measurement means exactly one thing: there's no shared view in the market right now, and any signal today is weaker than on days of agreement.
💎SCENARIOS
The corridor holds — 40% · Burn-up through the short fuel — 32% · Slide into the long fuel — 28%
This is how we weigh the odds — not a promise; trigger and cancellation levels are in the full version.
🔒In today's full RADAR:
— the two biggest shorts in the market belong to one house — with sizes, the distance to a margin call, and what they've already cost their owner;
— case №948: an ETH condor in its twelfth day in play, with all four legs, term and payoff profile.
ANALYST access → indiciadesk.com/en/agent
💎DEEP
🔒WHALES IN DETAIL 💠
Portraits from the Hyperliquid registry, snapshot 07:16 UTC. Nicknames aren't treated as identification.
The market's biggest loss.ETH SHORT $201.5M, leverage 5×, entry $2,221, uPnL −$22.1M, liquidation at $3,594 — 44% above spot. Account $97.4M. Over the week the same address added 27,166 ETH: the short isn't being lifted, it's being built. The same address in BTC. SHORT $171.7M, leverage 5×, entry $72,152, uPnL −$16.3M, liquidation at $121,293 (+52%), 460BTC added over the week. Together the two positions carry $38.4M of unrealised loss — and neither is anywhere near a margin call. A second address with the same pattern.ETH SHORT $113.7M and BTC SHORT $99.2M, both at 5× leverage, uPnL −$15.8M and −$17.3M, liquidations at $3,758 and $126,899 on a $64.3M account. Together with the first address that's $71.5M of unrealised loss across the two. The market's biggest gain.ETH LONG $49.9M, leverage only 4×, entry $1,936, uPnL +$11.2M, liquidation at $1,020 — 59% below spot, on a $12.5M account. Held for at least a week: the low leverage is exactly why the position survived the August slide. The risky side.BTC LONG $47.4M at 40× leverage with liquidation at $69,253 (13% below spot) and ETH LONG $98.3M at 25× with liquidation at $2,335 (6% from price) — one wallet, account $8.7M. A week ago the BTC position didn't exist at all. Closest to triggering.BTC SHORT $21.6M at 40× leverage, entry $75,936, liquidation at $82,004 — only 3% above spot.
Block structure in the snapshot. In BTC the snapshot showed one — a put spread of 50 contracts. The data gives neither its term nor its net premium, and by our rule a structure without a date and a premium isn't published in detail. Case №948 · ETH condor at $1,700/$1,900/$2,800/$3,000, size 11,500, entered at $2,462, expiry 25.09.2026 — twelfth day in play.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-25. Кит отримав $91k премії. Беззбитковість: $1 867 і $2 830.
Case №546 · ETH strangle at $1,000/$4,000, size 7,500, entered at $1,806, expiry 25.06.2027 — sixty-third day in play.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2027-06-25. Кит заплатив $530k премії. Беззбитковість: $859 і $4 141.
Closed over the day: the code added no new closures — the last two cases closed yesterday. The two BTC risk reversals were dismantled by the whales ahead of expiry back on 28.08. ΔOI over the week, both ways:BTC+5,945 calls at $80,000, +5,617 at $82,000 and +3,908 at $79,000. ETH: +22,488 calls at $2,800 against +17,723 puts at $2,400 and +14,452 at $2,300.
🔬Who exactly
Both of the biggest shorts are Abraxas Capital Mgmt (Heka Funds): two addresses of one house, ETH and BTC on each. The house carries $71.5M of unrealised loss and over the week didn't reduce the short but increased it in both assets.
The third-largest ETH short is Fasanara Capital, $72.1M at 15× leverage, uPnL −$10.4M on a $43.5M account.
Both of the riskiest longs — BTC at 40× and ETH at 25× — are held by Machi Big Brother: $146M combined on an $8.7M account.
The BTC short with liquidation 3% above spot sits behind an address self-signed "DoshiAtoll"; that's a nickname, not an identification.
Money by address. The cash outflow went in tranches to Coinbase deposit addresses — $9.90M and $7.50M — then in eight smaller tranches to OKX and $1.80M to Binance. The coin channel sent $2.94M in BTC to Wintermute, while ETH and SOL came back in small sums via Binance and the same Wintermute. Coming in, by contrast: two tranches of $15.0M USDC each to addresses with no public label.
🔒THE WEEK'S DYNAMICS 🔬
Flows — our registry of Hyperliquid whales; gamma levels and VRP — the Deribit book.
Perps.BTC: net $294M short; over the week a $68M shift toward long — and all of it overwritten by one last day. The direction changed inside the window: the first, still weak sign that the previous move is fading. ETH: net $300M short, $95M toward short over the week, $20M over the last day — an even pace, no spike.
Gamma flip.BTC$68,349 — up 2,100 over the week; ETH$2,305 — up 44. When the flip and the walls crawl after price, the market makers are ceding the level; when they stand still, the level is real and the market makers hold it (what the flip is).
The price of fear. Over the week the premium thinned by 0.4: insurance is getting cheaper relative to how the market actually moves.
Calendar. The nearest expiry moved its max pain point by +12,000 over the week — the flow is dragging the consensus upward.
Changing of the guard. Over seven days the whales assembled 207 confirmed structures: 64 bullish, 52 bearish, 24 on volatility, 67 on range. The biggest — a call diagonal on 6,000 ETH. The lean is mixed: there's no single direction in them.
🔒CROSS-CHECK IN DETAIL 💠
BTC levels. Everything below comes from the Deribit options book. The market-maker break-even corridor is $78,500–$82,000; by our study across 364 expiries price stays inside such a corridor in roughly 80% of cases. Below, a put wall at $78,500 — but it's thin, 246 contracts; above, a call wall at $82,000 on 14,274 contracts. The ceiling is heavier than the floor by tens of times.
ETH levels. Corridor $2,360–$2,520, max pain$2,440 (what max pain is). Put wall $2,300 on 32,116 contracts, call wall $2,580 on 1,499 — here it's the reverse, the floor is incomparably heavier than the ceiling.
Fuel. Above the market $32.1M of short positions in the $81,318–83,710 band, below it $26.8M of longs in the $75,738–78,130 band. There's more fuel above spot: that's about the RANGE of a move for the same push, not about a higher probability of that move.
Gamma vacuum. Empty above at $86,000–$88,000 and below at $73,000–$74,000: no market-maker hedge sits there, and a move through those bands runs faster.
Stress test ±2%. At −2% ($78,184) the dealers are still in positive gamma — a pullback gets damped and bought back. At +2% ($81,375) price is still under the call wall — the ceiling holds the move.
OI flow.BTC put/call: month 0.52 · week 0.56 · now 0.55 — the ratio is stable, the book isn't repositioning.
IV by tenor.BTC 2d P31/C32 · 7d P35/C37 · 30d P37/C39, percentiles since February 24th, 28th and 35th. ETH 2d P36/C39 · 7d P43/C48 · 30d P50/C53, percentiles 14th, 16th and 29th. ETH is cheaper than BTC in relative terms on all three tenors.
💎SCENARIOS IN DETAIL 💠
The corridor holds — 40%. ⏱ 2 days, to 08.09. BTC stays inside the $78,500–$82,000 band. Cancellation level: a touch of $78,000.
Burn-up through the short fuel — 32%. ⏱ 2 days, to 08.09. Trigger: a touch of $81,300 — the bottom of the band holding the short positions. Cancellation level: a touch of $78,000.
Slide into the long fuel — 28%. ⏱ 2 days, to 08.09. Trigger: a touch of $78,100 — the top of the long-fuel band. Cancellation level: a touch of $81,300.
This is how we weigh the odds — not a promise; the code will compute the verdict from spot history.
🔭WHAT TO WATCH
• The $82,000 call wall on 14,274 contracts: while price is under it, the ceiling holds the move up (💠).
• The BTC gamma flip at $68,349 — its break changes the regime first; we're watching whether it keeps crawling higher (🔬).
• The $81,318–83,710 band: that's where the short fuel lies, and a touch of its bottom is the second scenario's trigger (🔬).
🆓TAIL
📊POLYGON
(our own signals at real prices, not a backtest)
⚙️Pendulum · Wheel(standing position, real prices)
+$240 on the day · +$8,641 in total · since 11.05.2026
⭐ Top-5 signals($1,000 per signal; "total" is the sum of all trades, not the return on a single thousand):
signal trades win last total since
Dust Strategy V2 395%−$1,125+$90,719 21.03
Dust Strategy V1 329%−$1,125+$35,906 20.03
Volatility Convergence V3 2245%−$507+$14,608 26.05
Skew 2.0 V2 3837%+$315+$11,762 26.05
Fear Flash V2 2232%−$418+$3,023 16.05
Deepest in the red: Wheel Trail V8 −$7,938 · Wheel Trail V6 −$6,908 · Against the Current · top V1 −$5,598 — all three hunt a reversal, and all three pay for every attempt while the trend continues. The most profitable signal — Dust Strategy V2 — wins only 5% of its 39 trades. Win rate isn't money.
📅REVIEW OF PREVIOUS CONCLUSIONS
(verdicts are computed by code from spot history)
Yesterday the system saw the risk tilted down — BTC made +0.2% over the day: the fall built into the positioning didn't happen, again. A week ago the market showed no clear tilt, and BTC went +2.2% — neutrality didn't hold.
No scenario verdicts over the day: three forecasts from 04.09 ran to term this morning, three more from 05.09 stand until tomorrow. We'll publish them in tomorrow's issue as soon as the code has computed them.
The tally by name, whole history: "Burn-up through the short fuel" — 5 confirmed of 15, cancelled at the boundary three times. "Squeeze up into the short fuel" — 4 of 10. "Slide under the gamma flip" — 4 of 10. "Slide into the long fuel" — 2 of 5.
Our weakest type is "The corridor holds": 3 full confirmations of 11 plus two partial — under a third. That's worse than a coin toss, so we never make the corridor scenario the day's anchor and keep its weight low — today's 40% is already the ceiling for this type.
📏Scale calibrator
• What protection costs. Our fear and greed index — 87 out of 100. We compute it from the price of volatility and the option skew on Deribit, not from news, which is why it diverges from the well-known index.
• Cheap or expensive for this market itself.BTC two-day vol — 24th percentile of the hourly history since February, weekly — 28th, monthly — 35th: cheaper than in most hours on record.
• Which way protection tilts.BTCskew−1.7: calls pricier than puts, i.e. the market pays extra for upside, not for protection against a fall. We don't yet have a reliable historical cut for skew. Terms: indiciadesk.com/en/glossary/
Not investment advice and not a recommendation to trade. Derivatives trading carries a high risk of loss; INDICIA DESK is a research publisher, not an adviser licensed by MAS, the SEC or the FCA — decisions and their consequences are yours.