Everyone will see the whales turning to callsthe asymmetry is that on the perps the BTC short tilt grew to 2.8 times the same morning, so the break belongs to ether alone until bitcoin's two lenses agree.
Case #20260914 · 14.09.2026 04:49 UTC · BTC$77,659 / ETH$2,516 · analysis: Fable 5.1 by Anthropic
📅YESTERDAY
The Sunday 13.09 expiry settled at 08:00 UTC. BTC settled at $77,115 — 0.5% from the morning max pain, a match within tolerance, and the market-maker break-even corridor held. ETH settled at $2,517 — practically on max pain, and the corridor held there too.
The corridor has held in both assets for a fifth day running. The code closed no case over the day, but the registry took in four new ones — all on calls.
⚡THE GIST
• Ether moved to the rising side in both lenses: the Hyperliquid whales added a tenth to their ETH longs over the day, and on Deribit options the call footprints above the market doubled the put ones.
• Bitcoin parted with itself: on the perps the top whales' short-over-long tilt grew to 2.8 times, while the day's option structures — all four new cases — are on calls.
• A large player looks to have left the registry's biggest ether case 11 days before expiry: yesterday a block went through that mirrors all four legs of condor #948 in the same sizes.
• Insurance got sharply dearer: BTC two-day vol climbed from the 17th to the 40th percentile in a day, and ETH calls are dearer than puts on all three tenors.
• Verdict — break ⚡: yesterday's stillness ended with a move toward calls, but in BTC the sources of measurement pull in different directions, so for now the break belongs to ether.
• 📊 Our Polygon — Pendulum: standing position, $0 on the day, +$9,956 in total since 11.05.
• 📊 Our Polygon — signals: best — Dust Strategy V2 +$88,469 at a 5% win rate · worst — Wheel Trail V8 −$8,578. Table at the bottom.
🐋WHALES: WHAT CHANGED — three arenas
Arena one — Hyperliquid futures. The whales pulled the two assets apart. In BTC the long side of the top whales shrank by a tenth over the day, the short side by less, and the short-over-long tilt grew to 2.8 times from 2.6. In ETH the reverse: longs grew by a tenth, the short barely moved, and the tilt compressed to 1.7 times from 1.9 — and the weekly window shows this build of longs accelerating precisely in the last day (how we track whale positions). Overleveraged whales under watch: 62 against 52 yesterday — ten more over the day, with longs at 59% of them, as yesterday. Not a single forced closure among the top whales.
Arena two — Deribit options. Two separate whale positions, and today both lean toward calls. The first — quiet accumulation in small lots outside the blocks. In BTC, of the week's three biggest footprints two are now calls against one yesterday; the single put footprint remains, under the market. In ETH the two biggest call footprints above the market grew one-and-a-half to two times over the day and now stand at double the biggest put footprint. The second — block trades (what a block is). Over two days the snapshot recognised three times as many structures in BTC as yesterday, and twice as many in ETH: the block market woke up after the weekend. Among the most visible — an ether call spread that gains on a rise up to its ceiling, and a position on a big bitcoin move in either direction. Separately — a block that mirrors condor #948 in reverse; the registry hasn't closed the case yet.
Arena three — money at the exchange border. A second day almost without movement. In 24 hours one tranche of $0.3M crossed the border — ZEC coins to a private address. The "bridge" channel is USDC cash: over seven days $45.5M came in and $10.9M went out — inflow four times the outflow; less than yesterday, because last week's big deposits dropped out of the window. Where the withdrawals go: 27% of everything withdrawn went to exchange addresses, as yesterday. Border snapshot 14.09, 04:49 UTC.
This is positioning, not a direction forecast.
🧭CROSS-CHECK — five camps of witnesses
Witnesses are independent data sources that back up or contradict the whales' positions.
What the funds are doing. Spot ETFs are the only camp that measures purchases of the coin itself, not a leveraged position. There's no new data: the last trading day is Friday 11.09, and Monday's figures appear only after the US close. The week to 11.09 in the BTC funds is negative: −$288M against +$610M the week before. Into the ETH funds over the same week went $224M. This camp is silent: Friday's picture — selling bitcoin, buying ether — matches today's split among the whales, but there'll be no fresh confirmation before the evening.
What the options market says. This camp measures one thing: what insurance costs on Deribit. Our fear-and-greed index stands at 87 out of 100 against 89 yesterday — greed is still extreme, but no longer from stillness: insurance got dearer. BTC two-day vol sits in the 40th percentile of its own hourly history since February against the 17th yesterday, ETH in the 54th: both moved in a day from cheap protection to the middle of the range (what implied vol is). On the two-day tenor ETH calls are dearer than puts by seven vol points — the market pays extra for taking part in a rise, not for protection against a fall (what skew is). This confirms the whales in ether: the whales add longs, and the options market pays more precisely for calls.
What the futures say. This camp measures who pays whom to hold a position. BTC and ETH funding on Hyperliquid is +0.010% each in eight-hour terms, as yesterday — longs pay shorts (what funding is). The BTC futures basis narrowed over the day but stayed positive. This camp is silent: what longs pay hasn't changed; the pressure neither builds nor fades.
What the crowd is doing. This camp measures how retail accounts stand against the whales. On Bybit perps 60% of BTC accounts stand long, ETH67% — a point less than yesterday. The gap between the crowd and the whales in BTC widened to 34.9 points from 32.1 — a monthly maximum again, because the whales cut longs. In ETH the gap compressed to 30.0: the whales moved toward the crowd. This confirms the whales in BTC: retail holds the long and the whales walk further away from it — while in ether the distance melts because the whales themselves are buying.
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. On OKX swaps $698k was liquidated, almost all of it longs, when BTC slid to $76,361 around midnight; that's only 8% of the week's volume. This camp is silent: the night slide caught small longs, but there was no cascade.
Again: this is positioning, not a direction forecast.
🌡ALTSEASON — the classic and our barometer
The classic altseason index stands at 33.3 out of 100 — bitcoin-season territory; over the week it ranged between 28 and 40 with no direction.
Our barometer watches money, not prices: open interest, funding and retail come from Bybit perps, the whales from the Hyperliquid registry. Alts' share of open interest is 41.8% — $4.41B of $10.55B, half a point more than yesterday.
Alt contracts with funding hotter than bitcoin's make up 46% of open interest — back to the middle of the week's range after yesterday's collapse.
Retail in the top-10 coins stands 70.3% long; the hottest are DOGE and XRP, both near 78%.
Whales in alts are structurally short: 35.2% long across $1.04B of positions, the biggest of them HYPE. That gap is permanent; the signal is in its CHANGE — and over the day it didn't move.
Full barometer: indiciadesk.com/en/altseason
⚖️VERDICT OF THE DAY
break ⚡ — after a quiet Sunday the whales moved, and moved toward calls: in ether both lenses agreed on the rising side for the first time in a week; in bitcoin the new option cases are on calls even as the perps keep building the short tilt. Witnesses: dearer ether calls stand with the ether whales, the crowd at a monthly maximum of the gap stands with the bitcoin whales; the funds, the futures and stress are silent.
What this does NOT mean. It isn't a claim that ETH or BTC goes up. The break is about positioning: the ether whales moved from waiting to building longs and calls. Bitcoin remains split, and the funds that sold BTC for a week give their first data only this evening.
🔒In today's full RADAR:
— the market's biggest ether short lost $12M of margin on its account over the day — its liquidation moved closer, and who it is;
— four new whale cases on calls, two of them across two autumn expiries, and the exit from condor #948 — legs, premiums and payoff profiles.
ANALYST access → indiciadesk.com/en/agent
💎DEEP
🔒WHALES IN DETAIL 💠
Portraits from the Hyperliquid registry, snapshot 03:46 UTC. Nicknames aren't treated as identification.
The market's biggest loss — the margin is melting.ETH SHORT $242.5M, leverage 5×, entry $2,270, uPnL −$23.1M, liquidation at $3,422 — 36% above spot against 41% yesterday. The size is almost the same over the day and the loss shrank by $1.2M, but the account thinned from $106.8M to $94.4M — it was margin that brought the liquidation closer, not price. The same address in BTC. SHORT $146.6M, leverage 5×, entry $72,307, uPnL −$9.9M, liquidation at $124,558 (+61%) — cut by $5.8M over the day, the second day running. A second address with the same pattern.ETH SHORT $154.2M and BTC SHORT $67.1M, both at 5× leverage, uPnL −$15.1M and −$7.8M, liquidations at $3,440 (+37%) and $144,970 on a $63.0M account against $67.0M yesterday. The BTC short was cut by another $6.1M. Together the two addresses carry $55.8M of unrealised loss against $58.0M yesterday. The third big ether short — keeps shrinking.ETH SHORT $47.3M at 15× leverage, entry $2,261, uPnL −$4.7M, account $22.0M. Over the day the position was cut by another $6.4M, and after yesterday's margin collapse the liquidation moved back out to $3,446 — 37% above spot against 33% yesterday. The ratio position is taken apart. The address with an ETH LONG of $50.2M at 4× from $1,936 (uPnL +$11.5M — now the market's biggest gain) no longer appears in the BTC top six with its $48.7M short, and its account halved — from $24.7M to $12.8M. The ether long remains; the bitcoin short was lifted or cut below $30M. The second big gain.ETH LONG $76.0M at 20×, entry $2,134, uPnL +$11.4M, liquidation at $1,759 (−30%), account $7.4M — held for at least a week. The risky side.ETH LONG $99.9M at 25× with liquidation at $2,436 — 3% under spot, and BTC LONG $43.4M at 40×, entry $77,505, liquidation at $72,331 (−7%). Account $5.8M against $6.8M yesterday; the BTC position was rebuilt over the day with a new entry price. A new short on maximum leverage.BTC SHORT $35.4M at 40×, entry $77,153, uPnL −$167k, liquidation at $83,356 — only 8% above spot, account $3.6M. A week ago the position didn't exist. No public label. The week's biggest new short stands.BTC SHORT $81.5M at 20×, entry $77,888, uPnL +$391k, liquidation at $87,688 (+13%), account $9.6M. No public label. Next to it a BTC SHORT of $30.3M at 10× from $77,874 with liquidation at $106,024 — held for at least a week, self-labelled.
Cases in the registry — four new over the day (#1070–#1073), all on calls, all from Deribit; three of them below with profiles, the fourth at the end of the list. Case #1072 · BTC call diagonal across two autumn expiries: 100 calls at $78,000 sold for 02.10.2026, 100 calls at $79,000 bought for 30.10.2026 — 200 contracts, entered at $77,523, first day. Net premium about 1.56BTC paid (≈$121k): the whale pays for the far call to outlive the near one.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-10-02. Кит заплатив $121k премії. Беззбитковості в показаному діапазоні немає.
Case #1071 · BTC call ratio spread: 150 calls at $84,000 bought for 02.10.2026, 200 calls at $95,000 sold for 30.10.2026 — 350 contracts, entered at $77,523, first day. Net premium about 0.13BTC paid (≈$10k). The legs sit on different expiries: the bought one expires 02.10, the sold one only 30.10, so the result depends on the price on both dates, not on a single level.
Case #1070 · ETH call ratio spread: 500 calls at $2,550 bought, 750 calls at $2,760 sold, expiry 18.09.2026 — 1,250 contracts, entered at $2,512, first day. Net premium about 6.4ETH paid (≈$16k): the best outcome is ether near $2,760 on Friday 18.09.
Case #1068 · BTC call diagonal: 25 calls at $77,500 sold for 14.09.2026, 25 calls at $78,000 bought for 25.09.2026 — 50 contracts, entered at $76,840, fourth day. Net premium about 0.35BTC paid (≈$27k). The sold leg settles today at 08:00 UTC — spot is $159 above its strike.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-14. Кит заплатив $27k премії. Беззбитковості в показаному діапазоні немає.
Case #948 · ETH condor at $1,700/$1,900/$2,800/$3,000, size 11,500, entered at $2,462, expiry 25.09.2026 — twentieth day in play. Net premium about 36.8ETH received (≈$91k). Yesterday, Sunday 13.09, a block went through with the same four legs in the opposite direction and the same sizes — 2,750 and 3,000 contracts. It looks like an exit 11 days before expiry; the registry hasn't closed the case yet, and the code will compute the result.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-09-25. Кит отримав $91k премії. Беззбитковість: $1 867 і $2 830.
Fourth new: #1073 BTC call diagonal — 20 calls at $78,000 bought for 14.09.2026, 20 calls at $79,000 sold for 18.09.2026, 40 contracts, net premium about 0.16BTC received (≈$13k); the bought leg settles today. Still in play: #1067 BTC put diagonal (the sold $76,000 leg settles today, spot above it), #1059 BTC strangle sold to 18.09, #1049 BTC bull put spread to 25.09 — spot is still under both strikes, #546ETH strangle to 25.06.2027. ΔOI over the week, both ways:BTC+1,612 puts at $72,000 against +1,601 calls at $78,000 and +1,542 calls at $81,000 — all spread across 9–12 expiries. ETH: +26,718 calls at $2,700 (77% in the 17.09 and 18.09 expiries) and +23,702 calls at $2,600 against +12,668 puts at $2,300.
🔬Who exactly
Both of the biggest shorts are Abraxas Capital Mgmt (Heka Funds): two addresses of one house. Over the day the house cut the BTC short by another $11.9M together (yesterday by $9M), left the ETH shorts alone, and the margin on the two accounts fell by $16.4M together — the ETH liquidations on both addresses moved in from 41–42% to 36–37% above spot.
The third big ETH short is Fasanara Capital: a second day of cutting, $11.4M together over two days, and the account has steadied at $22.0M.
The risky 25× ETH long and the 40× BTC long are Machi Big Brother: $143M together on a $5.8M account, margin down by $1M over the day.
The 10× BTC short is an address self-labelled VBVIT; the nickname isn't treated as identification.
The market's biggest gain, the second big ETH long, the new 40× BTC short and the week's biggest new short belong to addresses without a public label.
Money by address. Over the day only ZEC worth $0.34M crossed the exchange border, to a private address — the margin that vanished from the Abraxas accounts and from the dismantled ratio position didn't leave in large tranches. Over the week the coin channel handed BTC worth $4.3M to Wintermute in one tranche, and BTC worth $7.4M came in via Binance in two.
🔒THE WEEK'S DYNAMICS 🔬
Perps.BTC: net $321M short (long $181M against short $502M), a $61M shift toward short over 7 days, $8M over the day — a steady pace. ETH: net $243M short (long $358M against $601M), $32M toward long over 7 days, and $33M over the last day: without yesterday's buying, the ether week would have been net short.
Gamma flip.BTC$70,295 — up 921 over the week, but down 487 over the day from yesterday's $70,782; the call wall came down 1,000 over the week. ETH$2,270 — almost flat over the week (−7), −37 over the day (what the flip is).
The price of fear. On the weekly window the premium is negative: IV37.9 against realised HV41.2 — minus 3.3 against minus 4.0 yesterday, compressed by 2.6 over 7 days. The premium is compressing because the options themselves are getting dearer.
Changing of the guard. Over the week the whales assembled 163 confirmed structures: 42 bullish, 37 bearish, 22 on volatility, 62 on range — against 172 yesterday. The biggest of the week is that same 11,500 ETH block that mirrors condor #948: the exit of an old large range position fell on the day ether calls were being built.
🔒CROSS-CHECK IN DETAIL 💠
BTC levels. Everything below comes from Deribit options open interest. The market-maker break-even corridor is $76,000–$78,000 against $77,000–$78,500 yesterday — shifted $500–1,000 down, with spot in its upper quarter; by our study across 378 expiries price stays inside such a corridor in roughly 82% of cases (what the corridor is). Max pain $77,000 against $77,500 (what max pain is). Today's Monday expiry is thin — 3,013 contracts, so its walls at $74,000 and $78,000 hold little.
The week's landmark — Friday 18.09.BTC: 17,373 contracts, max pain$78,000, put wall $72,000 on 2,414 contracts, call wall $82,000 on 1,800 — almost unchanged over the day (what the walls are). ETH: 117,434 contracts against 92,993 yesterday — the expiry thickened by a quarter in a day; max pain$2,500, put wall $2,200 on 8,030, call wall $2,800 on 23,573, and the neighbouring $2,700 strike grew to 19,295 from 13,050.
ETH levels. The corridor is $2,480–$2,580, unchanged, max pain$2,520. The call wall across all expiries is $2,700 on 53,573 contracts: above ether it's the heaviest level in the open interest.
The quarterly, 25.09.BTC: max pain$72,000, put and call densest at $70,000 (9,445 and 10,957) — 45% of all BTCOI. ETH: max pain$2,200, put $2,100 on 38,507, call $3,000 on 43,979 against 46,064 yesterday — 2,085 fewer, consistent with the block on the condor.
Fuel. Above the market $46.7M of short positions in the $79,068–81,394 band against $17.0M yesterday — almost three times the short fuel, and for the first time in a week more of it than long fuel. Below the market $39.5M of longs in the $73,642–75,968 band against $50.8M. In ETH the long fuel under the market is $150.6M in the $2,384–2,459 band against $103.1M; the shorts above are almost absent — $196k. This is about the RANGE of a move for the same push, not about a higher probability of that move (what the fuel map is).
Gamma vacuum. In BTC it's dense above spot; empty below, at $73,000–$74,000. In ETH dense above spot; empty below, at $2,350–$2,400.
Stress test ±2%.BTC at +2% ($79,074) leaves the dealers still in positive gamma — the move gets damped. ETH at −2% ($2,461) and at +2% ($2,562) leaves the dealers in positive gamma too — moves both ways get damped.
OI flow.BTC put/call across all expiries: month 0.54 · week 0.55 · now 0.56 — stable; ETH0.52 · 0.55 · 0.53 — ether's open interest tilted slightly toward calls again over the day (what put/call is).
Two options venues.BTC put/call on the same expiries up to 30 days: 0.55 on Deribit against 1.10 on Bybit — Bybit's open interest got more put-heavy over two days: 1.01 two days ago, 1.03 yesterday, 1.10 today; ETH0.57 against 0.78. We don't know who owns the Bybit positions, so this is neither "whales" nor "retail" — just a second venue with a different lean.
IV by tenor.BTC 2d P35/C36 · 4d P41/C41 · 18d P37/C36, percentiles since February 40th, 51st and 28th against 17th, 34th and 23rd yesterday. ETH 2d P51/C58 · 4d P57/C64 · 18d P54/C55, percentiles 54th, 57th and 46th — on the two near tenors calls are dearer than puts by 7 points. BTCDVOL37.8 against 30-day realised 33.4 — a premium of +4.3 against +4.1 yesterday; ETHDVOL54.5 against 52.9 (what the premium is).
💎SCENARIOS IN DETAIL 💠
The code's verdicts for yesterday. The code closed both scenarios from 11.09, and both were confirmed: "The corridor holds" — BTC spent 100% of the time inside the band and closed at $77,192; "Burn-up through the short fuel" — the high of $78,811 went through the $78,600 trigger. The three scenarios from 12.09 run their course today at 05:08 UTC; the three from 13.09 stand until tomorrow. The week since 07.09: 21 scenarios — 5 confirmed, 1 partially, 4 not, 5 cancelled at the boundary, 6 in progress. Whole history: corridor 8 of 19 plus 3 partial, burn-up 6 of 23, slide into the long fuel 4 of 12 — the directional types run worse than a coin toss, the corridor type under half.
The corridor holds — 40%. ⏱ 2 days, to Wednesday 16.09. BTC stays between the two fuel bands, $76,000–$79,000. Cancellation level: a touch of $73,600 — the bottom of the long-fuel band.
Burn-up through the short fuel — 30%. ⏱ 2 days, to 16.09. Trigger: a touch of $79,070 — the bottom of the band of short positions, which thickened almost three times over the day. Cancellation level: a touch of $75,950.
Slide into the long fuel — 30%. ⏱ 2 days, to 16.09. Trigger: a touch of $75,950 — the top of the band of long positions. Cancellation level: a touch of $79,070.
This is how we weigh the odds — not a promise; the code will compute the verdict from spot history.
🔭WHAT TO WATCH
• Today, 08:00 UTC: the sold legs of cases #1067 ($76,000 put) and #1068 ($77,500 call) settle, along with the bought leg of #1073 ($78,000 call) — spot stands between $77,500 and $78,000, and if it stays there to settlement, only the sold call leg of #1068 ends in the money (💠).
• Abraxas Capital: two days running the BTC short shrinks while the margin under the ETH short melts — if the margin keeps draining, the buffer to liquidation in ether will shrink without any move in price (🔬).
• The ETF funds after the weekend: the first trading day shows whether the BTC funds' selling in the week to 11.09 continued while the whales on the perps build the short tilt (🔬).
🆓TAIL
📊POLYGON
(our own signals at real prices, not a backtest)
⚙️Pendulum · Wheel(standing position, real prices)
+$0 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 415%−$1,125+$88,469 21.03
Dust Strategy V1 349%−$1,125+$33,656 20.03
Volatility Convergence V3 2744%−$261+$13,542 26.05
Skew 2.0 V2 3936%−$722+$11,040 26.05
Fear Flash V2 2232%−$418+$3,023 16.05
Deepest in the red: Wheel Trail V8 −$8,578 · Wheel Trail V6 −$7,565 · Wheel Trail V7 −$5,944 — three variants of one signal hunt a reversal and pay for every attempt while the trend continues. For a second day running not a single trade closed in the top five: after Saturday's six losers the table stands line for line, and BTC's overnight move inside a 2% band gave the signals no new entry point. The most profitable signal — Dust Strategy V2 — wins only 5% of its 41 trades. Win rate isn't money.
📅PUBLIC LEDGER
(computed by code at the settlement price)
The market-maker corridor. Across 378 expiries since February the market-maker break-even corridor held the settlement price 309 times — 82%. Sunday's 13.09 expiry held in both assets by the morning levels — a fifth day running; Sunday isn't yet written into the expiry ledger. 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 35% of those same 378 expiries. Yesterday both assets converged: BTC within 0.5%, ETH practically exactly. Decision: we don't chase max pain — two days of matches don't change a third over half a year.
The walls. The call wall held the settlement in 49% of expiries, the put wall in 42%: roughly a coin toss. Today's BTC expiry has only 3,013 contracts — walls like these we don't treat as a level. Decision: a wall without an expiry and a contract count isn't published as a level; 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, 721 closed cases). Call diagonal — the type of two of the day's four new cases: 49 closed, −$1.58M in total for the whales. Call ratio spread — the type of the other two: 29 closed, −$1.04M in total. Condor: 36 closed, 69% matched by strikes, yet −$126k in total. All closed cases together: −$5.9M for the whales. Decision: win rate isn't money, and we don't copy whale structures — today's four new cases on calls promise nothing by themselves; we track where they stand.
Polygon. Pendulum +$9,956 since 11.05 at $0 on the day. The Dust Strategy: 75 trades across both versions and +$122k together; on Saturday each version closed two trades in the red for $4,500 combined, and neither has traded since. The Wheel Trail: three variants in the bottom three. 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 — 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 — 40th percentile of the hourly history since February, four-day — 51st, eighteen-day — 28th: the near tenors moved in a day from cheap to the middle of the range.
• Which way protection tilts. There's no aggregate BTCskew in the morning snapshot; by tenor BTC puts and calls are almost level, while ETH calls are dearer than puts by 7 points on the two near tenors — the market pays extra for taking part in a rise in ether. 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.