Report archive · 08.09.2026

INDICIA Radar

Case No. 20260908 · 08.09.2026

Everyone saw BTC slip on Mondaythe asymmetry today is that the whales themselves stopped agreeing with each other.

Case #20260908 · 08.09.2026 11:27 UTC · BTC $78,309 / ETH $2,472 · analysis: Fable 5.1 by Anthropic

📅YESTERDAY

The 08.09 expiry settled at 08:00 UTC. BTC settled at $78,399 — 2% from max pain and 0.13% below the edge of the market-maker break-even corridor: the corridor didn't hold, for the first time in three days. ETH settled at $2,478 against a max pain of $2,480 — a near-exact match, and the corridor held.

No whale cases closed with a P&L over the day; the day before, two ETH condor cases closed in the black at about $1k each.

⚡THE GIST

• The Hyperliquid perp whales in BTC and ETH parted ways: in BTC the week's net shifted toward long, while in ETH the short keeps building and accelerated over the last day.

• The gap between the crowd and the whales in BTC is the widest in a month: retail long, whales short, and over three days the distance between them grew by almost six points.

• The Deribit options book quietly stacked more than 12,000 calls over the week at a single strike, $81,000 — exactly where the call wall stands.

• Insurance got noticeably pricier at the weekly tenor: BTC weekly vol climbed from the 27th percentile of its own hourly history since February to the 50th — right into the middle of the range.

• Verdict — break: yesterday three camps of witnesses stood against the whales; today funding crossed to their side, and the split among the whales themselves became the event of the day.

• 📊 Our Polygon — Pendulum: standing position, −$172 on the day, +$9,956 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. Two assets tell two different stories today.
In BTC both sides shrank over the day, the long side faster, so the tilt rose to 3.0 times short-over-long against 2.6 yesterday; but the week's net shift went toward long, and only the last day turned slightly back toward short. ETH is the reverse: the short has been building all week and accelerated over the last day — the whales are adding to the position, not lifting it (how we track whale positions).
Overleveraged whales under watch: 61, the same as yesterday, and 69% of them stand long. None is close to a margin call.

Arena two — Deribit options. Two separate whale positions here, and today both look up in BTC.
The first — quiet accumulation in small lots outside the blocks: open interest piling up at one strike for days with no big trades behind it. In BTC the book stacked more than 12,000 calls at $81,000 over the week, spread across eight expiries, plus smaller batches at neighbouring strikes higher up. In ETH it's both sides: calls at $2,800 and puts at two strikes under the market, in almost equal measure.
The second — block trades (what a block is). Over two days the snapshot recognised 32 structures in BTC against 14 yesterday: the market came alive. The most visible is a BTC strangle sold with an 18.09 expiry: the whale sells both a put far below and a call far above, taking on the view that price won't leave a wide corridor. In ETH the snapshot showed a straddle of 1,000 contracts right at the current price — a position on a big move either way. Five new cases of the day — legs, premiums and payoff profiles are in the paid part.

Arena three — money at the exchange border. Cash comes in and settles, coins go out — and less and less of it heads to exchanges.
The "bridge" channel is USDC cash: over seven days $74.9M came in and only $7.5M went out — ten times more entered than left.
The "Unit" channel is the coins themselves: in BTC withdrawals exceeded deposits ($13.9M against $5.6M); in ETH the inflow was twice the outflow.
Where the withdrawals go: only 14% of everything withdrawn went to exchanges against 41% yesterday — money is leaving toward players from the registry, not toward where the coin gets sold. Border snapshot 08.09, 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.
No data today: the funds didn't trade over the weekend, nor on Monday 07.09 — a US holiday, Labor Day, and US exchanges were shut. The last trading day is Friday 04.09, and we covered it yesterday: the week's inflow into BTC funds thickened slightly against the week before.
This camp is silent: a fourth day without fresh numbers; the evidence hasn't been updated.

What the options market says. This camp measures one thing: what insurance costs on the Deribit book.
Our fear-and-greed index stands at 83 out of 100 against 85 yesterday — still extreme greed, but it has started to give.
The main move is in the price of insurance. BTC weekly vol climbed from the 27th percentile of its own hourly history since February to the 50th — in one day from "cheap" to right in the middle of the range; the two-day tenor followed. The market has started paying for protection.
This confirms the whales: the book gets pricier on the same day the ETH perp whales build their short and spot slips.

What the futures say. This camp measures who pays whom to hold a position.
BTC funding on Hyperliquid flipped: −0.003% in eight-hour terms against +0.007% yesterday — shorts now pay longs, the leveraged crowd has turned toward fear (what funding is). The BTC futures basis, by contrast, widened to +25 from zero yesterday: the term price pulled away from spot, upward.
This confirms the whales: funding moved to the side where the whales stand — yesterday it was against them.

What the crowd is doing. This camp measures how retail accounts stand against the whales.
On Bybit perps 55% of BTC accounts stand long, 66% in ETH; the shares barely moved over the day.
What moved is the gap itself: in BTC it widened to 30.3 points against 25.6 yesterday and sits in the 90th percentile of its monthly history — wider than on nine days in ten. The gap on its own is structural and always there; the event is its motion, and today there is motion.
This confirms the whales: retail holds long, whales hold short, and the distance between them grew to a monthly maximum.

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 $125k was liquidated, longs and shorts in equal measure; that's 3% of the week's volume — an even background, no acceleration.
This camp is silent: spot slipped, and no stress was added.

Again: this is positioning, not a direction forecast.

🌡ALTSEASON — the classic and our barometer

The classic altseason index stands at 38.3 out of 100 — bitcoin-season territory; over the day it added a point from 37.3.

Our barometer watches money, not prices, and counts it from the Hyperliquid perp registry. Alts' share of open interest is 43.6% — $4.83B of the whole market's $11.08B.

Hot funding cooled sharply: 57% of contracts against 88% yesterday — the biggest one-day move among all our alt gauges.

Retail in the top-10 coins stands 68.5% long; the hottest are DOGE and XRP, both near 77%.

Whales in alts are structurally short: only 34.7% long across $1.36B of positions, the biggest of them in HYPE. That gap is permanent; the signal is in its CHANGE — and over the day it moved by less than a point.

Full barometer: indiciadesk.com/en/altseason

⚖️VERDICT OF THE DAY

break ⚡ — yesterday the witnesses stood against the whales; today the picture flipped: funding crossed to the whales' side, insurance got pricier, and the crowd pulled away from the big players to a monthly maximum. But the whales themselves parted ways — in BTC the week's net went toward long, in ETH the short is building and accelerating. The BTC options book, meanwhile, is stacking calls right under the call wall.

What this does NOT mean. It isn't a claim that ETH goes down and BTC goes up. A split between the assets means exactly one thing: there's no shared thesis in the market, and any signal today carries less weight than on days of agreement. The camps of witnesses confirm positioning, not direction.

🔒In today's full RADAR:

— the market's biggest short grew by another third over the week and, together with its paired address, is costing the owner tens of millions in unrealised loss — with sizes, the buffer to a margin call and who it is;

— case #1059: a BTC strangle sold — the wide corridor a whale is selling until 18.09, with legs, net premium and payoff profile.

ANALYST access → indiciadesk.com/en/agent

💎DEEP

🔒WHALES IN DETAIL 💠

Portraits from the Hyperliquid registry, snapshot 10:46 UTC. Nicknames aren't treated as identification.

The market's biggest loss. ETH SHORT $237.4M, leverage 5×, entry $2,263, uPnL −$21.1M, liquidation at $3,568 — 44% above spot. Account $112.9M. Over the week the address added 35,314 ETH: yesterday the position was $207.1M, so over the day the short grew by another $30M.
The same address in BTC. SHORT $159.2M, leverage 5×, entry $72,155, uPnL −$13.1M, liquidation at $130,242 (+66%). Yesterday it was $171.1M — the BTC short was trimmed a little while the ETH one was built up: a shift from one asset into the other.
A second address with the same pattern. ETH SHORT $113.3M and BTC SHORT $73.0M, both at 5× leverage, uPnL −$15.3M and −$11.8M, liquidations at $3,738 and $141,473 on a $63.5M account. In BTC 277 BTC were cut over the day — yesterday the position was $98.8M. Together the two addresses carry $61.3M of unrealised loss against $69.9M yesterday: spot slipped, and the loss compressed.
A third big short. ETH SHORT $80.0M at 15× leverage, entry $2,174, uPnL −$10.0M, liquidation at $3,641 (+47%), account $43.7M. Over the week 3,238 ETH added.
The market's biggest gain. ETH LONG $49.7M, leverage only 4×, entry $1,936, uPnL +$11.0M, liquidation at $1,028 — 59% below spot, account $12.4M. Held for at least a week. Next to it a long of $75.2M at 20×, entry $2,134, uPnL +$10.6M, liquidation at $1,755.
The risky side. ETH LONG $98.8M at 25× leverage with liquidation at $2,380 — only 4% under spot against 6% yesterday, on a $7.1M account. Yesterday's 40× BTC LONG of the same address is no longer in the top six.
New BTC longs at high leverage. LONG $27.3M at 40×, entry $79,130, liquidation at $67,703 (−14%), account $3.3M — a week ago this address stood SHORT; over the day it added 165 BTC. LONG $23.6M at 40×, entry $78,434, liquidation at $58,934 (−25%), account $5.3M — new this week, 98 BTC cut over the day. Both carry self-signed nicknames; those are nicks, not identification.
Closest to triggering. BTC SHORT $23.6M at 30×, entry $78,897, liquidation at $80,534 — 2% above spot, an address with no public label, already up $84k after the slip. BTC SHORT $21.3M at 40×, entry $75,936, liquidation at $81,897 — 4% above spot, self-signed.

Block structures in the snapshot — five new cases, all from the Deribit book.
Case #1059 · BTC strangle sold: 100 puts at $72,000 and 100 calls at $86,000 sold, expiry 18.09.2026 — 200 contracts, entered at $78,310. The whale collects premium for price staying inside $72,000–$86,000 until 18.09: net premium about 0.70 BTC received (≈$55k). Large for this book; 8% to the lower edge, 10% to the upper.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-18. Кит отримав $55k премії. Беззбитковість: $71 452 і $86 548.

Case #1060 · BTC call ratio spread with two expiries: 37.5 calls at $80,000 bought for 30.10.2026, 75 calls at $81,000 sold for 18.09.2026 — 112.5 contracts, entered at $78,310. Net premium about 0.85 BTC paid (≈$67k): the far call costs more than the two nearer ones. It gains if price doesn't run sharply past $81,000 before 18.09 and then climbs into October. Rare.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-18. Кит заплатив $67k премії. Беззбитковості в показаному діапазоні немає.

Case #1057 · BTC call diagonal: 50 calls at $80,000 bought for 11.09.2026, 50 calls at $82,000 sold for 25.09.2026 — 100 contracts, entered at $78,406. Net premium about 0.51 BTC received (≈$40k). Rare.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-11. Кит отримав $40k премії. Беззбитковості в показаному діапазоні немає.

Case #1056 · BTC put diagonal: 50 puts at $70,000 sold for 30.10.2026, 50 puts at $73,000 bought for 25.09.2026 — 100 contracts, entered at $78,406. Net premium about 0.43 BTC received (≈$33k): September protection paid for by selling a far October put. Rare.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-25. Кит отримав $33k премії. Беззбитковості в показаному діапазоні немає.

Case #1058 · BTC call ratio spread for 25.09.2026: 25 calls at $82,000 bought, 50 calls at $85,000 sold — 75 contracts, net premium zero, the structure is free for its owner.
Case #948 · ETH condor at $1,700/$1,900/$2,800/$3,000, size 11,500, entered at $2,462, expiry 25.09.2026 — fourteenth day in play. Net premium about 36.8 ETH received (≈$91k): the whale is paid for price staying between $1,900 and $2,800 — it sold the inner strikes.

Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-25. Кит отримав $91k премії. Беззбитковість: $1 867 і $2 830.

Closed over the day: the code added no new closures. Yesterday's two ETH condor cases on the $2,460–$2,500 corridor (#1048 and #1055) stand with the verdict "confirmed", the whale about +$1k on each.
ΔOI over the week, both ways: BTC +12,586 calls at $81,000 (8 expiries), +4,697 at $82,000 and +4,188 at $80,000 (65% for 25.09). ETH: +19,926 calls at $2,800 (92% for 18.09) against +10,773 puts at $2,400 and +10,696 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. Over the day the house reshuffled: it trimmed BTC on both addresses and added $30M to ETH on the first. Together $61.3M of unrealised loss against $69.9M yesterday.

The third big ETH short is Fasanara Capital: $80.0M, 15× leverage, uPnL −$10.0M on a $43.7M account; 3,238 ETH added over the week.

The riskiest long — ETH $98.8M at 25× with a 4% buffer to liquidation — is held by Machi Big Brother; his 40× BTC long from yesterday dropped out of the top six.

The new 40× BTC longs sit behind addresses self-signed "fells3990" (short a week ago) and "MoonpathCliff"; the short with a 4% buffer is "DoshiAtoll". Those are nicks, not identification.

Money by address. A whale from the registry topped up margin: over the week the Fasanara Capital address brought in $16.0M USDC in four tranches — two of $5.0M and two of $3.0M — and it's the same address building the ETH short. Another address from the players' registry, with no public label, brought in $9.5M in three tranches ($4.0M, $3.0M and $2.5M) over the last two days. The biggest cash deposit — $15.0M USDC to an address with no public label. The coin channel keeps sending BTC to Wintermute in tranches of $2.7–2.9M — the fourth in four days; BTC worth $3.91M came back in via Binance.

🔒THE WEEK'S DYNAMICS 🔬

Perps. BTC: net $265M short (long $134M against short $399M); over 7 days a $43M shift toward long, over the last day $6M back toward short — a turn inside the window. ETH: net $294M short (long $329M against $623M); $57M toward short over 7 days, $22M over the day — the pace is accelerating, the whales are building the position ever more aggressively.

Gamma flip. BTC $69,126 — up roughly 2,500 over the week; ETH $2,273 — up 10. The BTC call wall moved down 1,000 over the week, to $81,000: the market makers pulled the ceiling closer to price (what the flip is).

The price of fear. On the weekly window the premium is nearly zero: IV 39.5 against realised HV 40.0, and over 7 days it grew by 0.2. Options are still slightly cheaper than the market actually moves, but the gap is closing.

Calendar. The nearest expiry, 09.09, moved its max pain point by +4,500 over the week — the flow is dragging the consensus up, despite the slip in spot.

Changing of the guard. Over the week the whales assembled 185 confirmed structures: 56 bullish, 43 bearish, 22 on volatility, 64 on range — against 201 yesterday: old ones rolled off faster than new ones were added. 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 $77,000–$81,000 — over the day it slid 500 on both sides from $78,500–$81,500, after spot; by our study across 370 expiries price stays inside such a corridor in roughly 80% of cases (what the corridor is). Below, a put wall at $77,500 on 285 contracts — yesterday the floor stood at $79,000 with 2,324: price went straight through it, and the new floor is flimsy again. Above, a call wall at $81,000 on 15,039 contracts against 14,251 at $82,000 yesterday — the ceiling came down a thousand and thickened. Max pain $79,000 against $80,000 yesterday (what max pain is).

ETH levels. Corridor $2,420–$2,540, max pain $2,480 — unchanged. The put wall moved from $2,100 to $2,400 (26,136 contracts) — the floor rose almost to price; call wall $2,560 on 2,092.

The nearest expiry, 09.09. BTC: max pain $79,000 on the combined book of two exchanges (Deribit $79,000 · Bybit $78,500), put $77,500 on 206 contracts, call $81,000 on 4,146 — here the ceiling is twenty times heavier than the floor. ETH: max pain $2,480, put $2,400 on 1,121, call $2,560 on 1,153.

The quarterly, 25.09. BTC: max pain $72,000, and both put and call are densest at $70,000 (8,777 and 10,961 contracts) — this expiry holds 42% of all BTC OI. ETH: max pain $2,150, put $2,100 on 37,194, call $3,000 on 41,467.

Fuel. Above the market $82.4M of short positions in the $80,298–82,660 band against $49.8M yesterday — the short fuel grew one and a half times over the day. Below the market $33.5M of longs in the $74,787–77,149 band. ETH is the mirror image: below the market $127.4M of long fuel in the $2,369–2,444 band against $8.3M yesterday — the biggest one-day change anywhere on the map; above it only $2.5M. This is about the RANGE of a move for the same push, not about a higher probability of that move.

Gamma vacuum. In BTC it's dense above spot — the walls damp a move up; empty only below, at $72,000–$73,000. In ETH it's empty below at $2,350–$2,400 — exactly where the long fuel sits.

Stress test ±2%. At −2% ($76,743) price lands on the put wall — the densest protection, the move gets braked. At +2% ($79,876) price is still under the $81,000 call wall — the ceiling holds the move.

OI flow. BTC put/call: month 0.57 · week 0.56 · now 0.54 — the book is slowly disarming against a fall, fewer puts per call.

Two options books. BTC put/call 0.51 on Deribit against 1.17 on Bybit; ETH 0.64 against 0.80. We don't know who owns the Bybit book, so this is neither "whales" nor "retail" — just a second book with a different lean.

IV by tenor. BTC 2d P33/C36 · 7d P40/C41 · 30d P38/C40, percentiles since February 36th, 50th and 42nd against 29th, 27th and 32nd yesterday. ETH 2d P43/C46 · 7d P51/C54 · 30d P51/C53, percentiles 28th, 43rd and 34th against 23rd, 18th and 29th. The weekly tenor got pricier fastest in both assets.

💎SCENARIOS IN DETAIL 💠

The code's verdicts for yesterday. Two sets closed, from 05.09 and 06.09: "The corridor holds" confirmed in both (BTC inside the band 100% and 94% of the time), "Burn-up through the short fuel" not confirmed in both (the $80,393 high against the $81,300 trigger), "Slide into the long fuel" not confirmed in both (lows of $79,384 and $78,355 against $78,000 and $78,100). The week since 01.09: 21 scenarios — 5 confirmed, 1 partially, 8 not, 4 cancelled at the boundary, 3 in play; only the corridor ones came through. Whole history: corridor 6 of 14 plus 2 partial, burn-up 5 of 18, slide into the long fuel 2 of 7 — the directional types run worse than a coin toss, which is why their odds sit below the corridor's.

The corridor holds — 40%. ⏱ 2 days, to 10.09. BTC stays inside the $77,000–$81,000 band. Cancellation level: a touch of $76,500.

Burn-up through the short fuel — 30%. ⏱ 2 days, to 10.09. Trigger: a touch of $80,300 — the bottom of the band holding the short positions. Cancellation level: a touch of $76,500.

Slide into the long fuel — 30%. ⏱ 2 days, to 10.09. Trigger: a touch of $77,150 — the top of the long-fuel band. Cancellation level: a touch of $80,300.

This is how we weigh the odds — not a promise; the code will compute the verdict from spot history.

🔭WHAT TO WATCH

• The $81,000 call wall on 15,039 contracts: it came down a thousand and thickened over the day, and it's right under it that the book stacked 12,000 calls — while price is under it, the ceiling holds the move up (💠).

• ETH long fuel of $127.4M in the $2,369–2,444 band — grew over the day from $8.3M; a touch of the band is the first thing that changes the cascade map (🔬).

• The BTC gamma flip at $69,126 — its break changes the regime first; we're watching whether it keeps crawling higher (🔬).

🆓TAIL

📊POLYGON

(our own signals at real prices, not a backtest)

⚙️Pendulum · Wheel (standing position, real prices)

−$172 on the day · +$9,956 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              39    5% −$1,125  +$90,719  21.03
Dust Strategy V1              32    9% −$1,125  +$35,906  20.03
Volatility Convergence V3     23   43%   −$476  +$14,132  26.05
Skew 2.0 V2                   38   37%   +$315  +$11,762  26.05
Fear Flash V2                 22   32%   −$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. One trade closed over the day — Volatility Convergence V3 at −$476, and the signal's win rate slipped from 45% to 43%. The most profitable signal — Dust Strategy V2 — wins only 5% of its 39 trades. Win rate isn't money.

📅PUBLIC LEDGER

(computed by code at the settlement price)

The MM corridor. Across 370 expiries since February the market-maker break-even corridor held the settlement price 301 times — 81%. Today's BTC expiry, 08.09, became one of the 69 exceptions: the $78,399 settlement landed 0.13% below the $78,500 edge; the ETH expiry held. Decision: we lean on the corridor, knowing that roughly one expiry in five it doesn't hold.

Max pain. An exact match with the settlement in only 34% of those same 370 expiries. Today BTC parted from it by 2.0% ($78,399 against $80,000); ETH matched ($2,478 against $2,480). Decision: we don't chase max pain — it's a landmark of the niche, not a magnet.

The walls. The call wall held the settlement in 49% of expiries, the put wall in 42%: roughly a coin toss. Yesterday's BTC put wall at $79,000 on 2,324 contracts let price through over the day. Decision: a wall without an expiry and a contract count isn't a level to us; with them, it's only the place where dealer hedging brakes a move — it doesn't stop it.

Whale structures by type (our Deribit registry, 705 closed cases). Condor: 34 closed, 71% matched by strikes, yet −$123k in total. Risk reversal: 68 closed, 56% matched, −$1.84M in total. Bull call spread: 28 closed, 43% matched, +$460k in total. All closed cases together: −$5.9M for the whales. Decision: win rate isn't money, and we don't copy whale structures — we track where they stand.

Polygon. Pendulum +$9,956 since 11.05, at −$172 today. The Dust Strategy: 71 trades, 7% winners, +$126,625 in total, but −$12,375 over the last 30 days — the losing streak continues, four positions in the market. The Wheel Trail: 161 trades, 32% winners, −$22,579 in total and −$12,604 over 30 days: the Polygon's most expensive signal, and the one still most numerous in the market — 11 positions. Decision: we publish both tallies daily with the same denominator; we keep the Dust for the money despite its win rate, and the Wheel Trail is the first thing we look at in every review.

📏Scale calibrator

• What protection costs. Our fear-and-greed index — 83 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 — 36th percentile of the hourly history since February, weekly — 50th, monthly — 42nd: the weekly tenor now sits right in the middle of the range, the rest are still cheaper than most hours since February.

• Which way protection tilts. BTC skew is absent from today's snapshot — the source returned no number for the second day running, so we're not calibrating the tilt today. 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.