Yesterday's leveraged shorts sat a step from liquidationthey didn't burn: they closed at a profit on the daytime move down, before the night low, and the whales keep the bitcoin short.
Case No. 20261013 · 13.10.2026 07:41 UTC · BTC$83,691 / ETH$2,526 · analysis: Fable 5.1 by Anthropic
📅YESTERDAY
Monday's expiry settled at 08:00 UTC: BTC$83,911, ETH$2,563. The max pain fixed a day before expiry was $82,000 and $2,500 — both settlements landed above it, by 2.3% and 2.5%, so no match. The market-maker break-even corridor fixed a day before expiry held in bitcoin but not in ether — the settlement came out 0.91% above it. The levels here are the ledger's, fixed a day before expiry; yesterday's radar quoted the morning book, which is why its numbers differ. Today's Tuesday expiry settles after this snapshot.
The case registry took in two new cases; the closed tally stands at 877, 872 of them with a score.
⚡THE GIST
• Since yesterday's morning snapshot bitcoin is down 0.5%, to $83,691, and ether 1.8%, to $2,526. Overnight bitcoin dipped to about $81,300 and came back. OKX swaps liquidated $574k over the day, 89% of it longs.
• The fresh leveraged shorts that stood pressed against their liquidation lines yesterday mostly closed at a profit during yesterday's daytime, on the way down to about $82,600 — before the night low and with no forced closures. The short seller from our investigation got out at a profit too, for the third time in two weeks.
• Bitcoin: the whales' tilt barely moved over the day — no shift on the constant set, and across all addresses it is $22–29M toward long only because yesterday's shorts closed. Their long share across the registry is 15.2% — the 2nd percentile since 10 July, against the 3rd yesterday.
• Ether: the whales shifted toward short again — by about $41M over the day, and the measurement half an hour earlier gives about $50M. Ether longs gave up at a loss for the second time this week.
• The largest short house trimmed its short a little for the second day running.
• The funds: no fresh figures since Friday — the data source is down.
• Verdict — continuation ⟳: the whales hold the short; yesterday's shorts on the edge took their profit rather than burning.
• 📊 Our Polygon — Pendulum: the best of four versions, +$348 on the day, +$8,626 in total since 11.05.
• 📊 Our Polygon — signals: best — Dust Strategy V2 +$79,469 at a 4% win rate · worst — Wheel Trail V8 −$10,812. Table at the bottom.
🐋WHALES: WHAT CHANGED — three arenas
Arena one — Hyperliquid futures. We measure the day's change in coins between the 07:16 UTC snapshots — on the constant set and on all addresses of both snapshots (how we track whale positions). In BTC on the constant set — 143 addresses — there is almost no shift: $2M toward long, and between the 06:46 snapshots $3M into the short. Across all addresses the shorts shrank by 139BTC and the longs added 202BTC: the short tilt narrowed by about $29M, between the 06:46 snapshots by $22M. The difference is mostly yesterday's shorts that closed in full and dropped out of the set — about 615BTC; part of it was offset by new shorts from addresses that weren't there yesterday. In ETH across all addresses the longs shrank by 15,700 ETH and the shorts added 528ETH: the short tilt grew by about $41M; between the 06:46 snapshots by about $50M. Across the registry — among positions with a liquidation price — the totals at the 07:16 UTC snapshot: BTC long $123.1M against a short of $685.2M, ETH$352.1M against $769.2M. The whales' long share in BTC is 15.2% against 16.7% yesterday: the short is 5.6 times the long. Overleveraged whales number 75 against 69 yesterday, $1.00B of positions together against $783M; the longs are the majority among them again, 53%, where yesterday the shorts had it. By our fragility index none of them is near a margin call; yesterday one was.
Arena two — Deribit options. The blocks are back: over two days 41 structures were recognised in bitcoin against 14 yesterday, and 20 in ether against 12. The next heavy expiry is Friday 16.10. The largest fresh one in bitcoin is protection against a deep fall: more puts bought far below the market than sold closer to it; there are also positions on a moderate rise. In ether — large structures with calls far above the market and puts sold below it, a position that pays as long as price doesn't fall through a certain level. Quiet accumulation outside the blocks over the week went separate ways (what a block is): in bitcoin — puts below the market only; in ether — calls only, near the market and in the money.
Arena three — money at the exchange border. The snapshot is fresh — up to this morning. Over seven days $51.2M was brought into the exchange and $80.3M taken out: $29.1M more left than arrived, against $28.2M yesterday. USDC cash is being withdrawn again: $19.2M out against $11.4M in. Bitcoin: $39.7M out against $13.4M in; ether, by contrast, is trickling in: $9.0M in against $7.3M out.
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. There are no fresh figures: the SoSoValue data source hasn't answered since Friday. The latest are for Thursday 08.10. This camp is silent: no data.
What the options market says. This camp measures one thing: what insurance costs on the Deribit book. BTCskew is +1.7 — puts slightly dearer than calls; yesterday the skew wasn't computed (what skew is). In ETH+0.6. BTC two-day vol sits in the 46th percentile since February against the 30th yesterday; DVOL37.1 against 38.0 (what implied vol is). Our fear-and-greed index stands at 63 out of 100, the same as yesterday. This camp is silent: the nearest insurance has risen to almost normal, the far-dated remains cheap.
What the futures say. This camp measures who pays whom to hold a position. BTC funding on Hyperliquid is −0.001% in eight-hour terms against +0.008% yesterday — the first time in days that shorts pay longs; on Binance +0.008% against 0.000% (what funding is). In ETH+0.004% and +0.007% against +0.002% and −0.002% yesterday. This camp is silent: funding sits near zero.
What the crowd is doing. This camp measures how retail accounts stand against the whales. On Bybit perps 60.9% of BTC accounts stand long against 61.7% yesterday, and in ETH71.3% against 71.1%. This camp is silent: the crowd hasn't moved.
Any signs of stress. This camp measures whether anyone has already been forced out of the market. On OKX swaps $574k was liquidated over the day, 89% of it longs, against $534k yesterday, when 81% were shorts. This sides with the whales: it was longs that were forced out over the day — the side opposite the whales.
Again: this is positioning, not a direction forecast.
🌡ALTSEASON — the classic and our barometer
The classic altseason index is 45.5 out of 100 on a list of 297 alts against 58.3 on a list of 192 yesterday; on today's list yesterday's value is 48.3. This is the transition zone: altseason starts at 75, bitcoin season sits below 25.
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 44.3% — $5.20B of $11.73B, the same as yesterday.
Alt contracts with funding hotter than bitcoin's make up 34% of open interest against 69% yesterday — the share is measured against bitcoin's own funding on Bybit: the alts cooled relative to it over the day.
Retail in the top-10 coins stands 73.6% long against 72.3% yesterday.
Whales in alts are structurally short: 28.0% long across $1.41B of positions, the largest of them HYPE. That gap itself is permanent, the signal is in its CHANGE — over the day the whales' long share rose by less than a point.
Full barometer: indiciadesk.com/en/altseason
⚖️VERDICT OF THE DAY
continuation ⟳ — the whales hold the short: in bitcoin the tilt barely moved and the whales' long share sits at the 2nd percentile since July; in ether the whales shifted toward short again. Yesterday's shorts on the edge of liquidation took their profit before the night low. The witnesses: stress sides with the whales, because it was longs that were forced out; the funds have no data; options, futures and the crowd are silent.
What this does NOT mean. It isn't a forecast of a fall: the largest short house is trimming its short a little for the second day, and while bitcoin options are quietly accumulating puts, ether options are accumulating calls. The fresh shorts getting out at a profit is the story of a few wallets, not the market's direction.
🔒In today's full RADAR:
• how much yesterday's shorts on the edge of liquidation made and at what price they got out;
• which whale flipped to short in both coins, and who gave up ether longs again.
ANALYST access → indiciadesk.com/en/agent
💎DEEP
🔒WHALES IN DETAIL 💠
Portraits from the Hyperliquid registry, snapshot 07:16 UTC; the day's change is measured between the 07:16 snapshots, in coins; the moves of individual addresses come from the registry snapshots and the trade records. Nicknames aren't treated as identification.
Shorts on the edge — out at a profit. By the trade records, the 40× short that stood 1% from liquidation yesterday closed 296BTC between 10:43 UTC yesterday and 00:32 today — 258 of them in yesterday's daytime at $82,559–83,485, the rest overnight at about $81,300 — +$295k in total; 29BTC remain. The 20× short that flipped from a long over the weekend closed all 303BTC at 12:22–12:34 at about $83,000 — +$14k. Not one of the trades carries a forced-closure mark. The 40× short seller from our investigation — out of the market for the third time. The address closed all 200BTC of its short yesterday at 12:34–13:43 UTC at $82,587–83,000 — +$57k, no forced closure. No positions left. Who flipped to short. A 40× address closed 900BTC of long (−$771k) and 26,000 ETH of long (−$826k) over the day, building and shedding along the way, and from 01:41 UTC went short ether, from 06:15 bitcoin too: this morning BTC SHORT 400BTC at 40× from $83,597 (liquidation at $90,567) and ETH SHORT 8,000 ETH at 25×. Ether longs gave up again. The 25× ether long closed 16,275 ETH over the day (−$1.01M) while topping up in parallel: this morning 7,600 ETH from $2,516, liquidation at $2,477 (−2%). Who added short. The address holding a 10,000 ETH long raised its bitcoin short from 50 to 300BTC at 25×. The 20× ether short — from 10,478 to 13,936 ETH. The largest short house — a little smaller again. Its first address went from 2,785 to 2,772 BTC and from 111,265 to 110,657 ETH, the second from 89,426 to 88,269 ETH, bitcoin unchanged. The market's biggest loss.ETH SHORT $279.9M, leverage 5×, entry $2,323, uPnL −$22.9M, liquidation at $3,993 (+58%). The same address in BTC. SHORT $232.1M, entry $76,152, uPnL −$21.0M, liquidation at $142,635 (+70%). The second address of the same handwriting.BTC SHORT $208.1M from $77,751 (uPnL −$14.9M, liquidation at $142,785, +71%), ETH SHORT $223.3M from $2,375 (uPnL −$13.6M, liquidation at $4,179, +65%). Together the two addresses carry $72.4M of unrealised loss against $81.2M yesterday; their $440.2M make up 64% of the registry's bitcoin short side, the same as yesterday. The 13× ether long — 40,119 ETH, ETH LONG $101.5M from $2,647, uPnL −$4.7M, liquidation at $2,288 (−9%). The market's biggest gain — ETH LONG $76.6M at 20× from $2,134, uPnL +$12.0M.
Cases in the registry — two new; notable ones of the 164 open. Two new cases. No. 1180 · a BTC bear put spread: 150 puts at $83,000 bought, 150 puts at $80,000 sold, expiry 16.10 — a position on a fall by Friday. No. 1181 · a BTC bull call spread, 25BTC: $90,000/$100,000 for 26.03.2027. Case No. 1153 · BTC, expiry 30.10.2026: 25 puts at $86,000 and 25 calls at $89,000 bought, 100 puts at $71,000 and 50 calls at $104,000 sold; premium ≈1.1BTC paid. It earns only in two bands — about $67,300–82,130 below and about $92,900–115,100 above; spot at $83,691 sits inside the zone where the structure is in the red.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-10-30. Кит заплатив $97k премії. Беззбитковість: $67 289 і $82 133 і $92 867 і $115 133.
Case No. 1143 · BTC, expiry 25.12.2026: 100 puts at $65,000 bought, 50 puts at $80,000 sold, 50 calls at $85,000 sold, 100 calls at $105,000 bought; premium ≈3.7BTC received. Spot at $83,691 is $1,309 under the sold $85,000 call.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-12-25. Кит отримав $307k премії. Беззбитковість: $56 149 і $73 851 і $91 149 і $118 851.
Case No. 1081 · BTC risk reversal: a synthetic short from $69,000 for 30.10.2026, premium ≈9.61BTC received, day twenty-eight. From the $75,860 entry spot has moved 10.3% against this position — yesterday it was 10.9%.
Профіль виплат на експірацію 2026-10-30. Кит отримав $729k премії. Беззбитковість: $76 290.
ΔOI over the week:BTC: +3,614 puts at $78,000, +2,575 puts at $80,000, +2,261 puts at $70,000. ETH: +44,924 calls at $2,300, +21,330 calls at $2,400, +19,155 calls at $2,600.
🔬Who exactly
Both of the biggest shorts are Abraxas Capital Mgmt (Heka Funds): over the day the house cut 13BTC and about 1,770 ETH of short; the unrealised loss across BTC and ETH is $72.4M.
The 30× bitcoin short is an address with the self-assigned label Fasanara Capital: BTC — 307BTC, ETH — 17,112 ETH.
Machi Big Brother is the 25× ether long that gave up ether for the second time this week: 7,600 ETH this morning.
The 40× short seller — the subject of our investigation — carries no public label; nor do the other addresses in this section.
Money by address. Over seven days $13.2M of the $13.4M of incoming bitcoin arrived from Binance addresses; $37.4M of the $39.7M of outgoing bitcoin and all the outgoing ether, $7.3M, went to addresses labelled Wintermute; $8.0M and $5.9M of USDC went to Binance and OKX deposit addresses.
🔒THE WEEK'S DYNAMICS 🔬
Perps on a constant set of addresses. Over 7 days on 128 addresses: BTC — $85M into the short, ETH — $39M into the short; yesterday on 130 addresses — $75M into the short and $5M into the long. The caveat is the same: full exits drop out of the set.
Gamma flip.BTC across the whole book $79,997 against $79,659 yesterday, spot 4.6% above it (what the flip is). ETH — $2,379 against $2,477, spot 6.2% above.
The price of fear. On the weekly window the premium is +2.7 (IV37.1 against the actual weekly HV34.4) against +4.7 yesterday.
🔒CROSS-CHECK IN DETAIL 💠
BTC levels. Everything below comes from the Deribit options book unless stated otherwise. Today's Tuesday expiry — 1,972 contracts: the market-maker break-even corridor is $82,500–$84,000, spot in its upper part (what the corridor is); max pain$83,000 on both exchanges (what max pain is); put $82,500 (220 contracts), call $84,000 (181) (what the walls are). It settles at 08:00 UTC, after this snapshot.
Further down the calendar. Wednesday 14.10 — 1,335 contracts; Friday 16.10 — 16,282, max pain$83,000; 30.10 — max pain$79,000 across the combined book and a call wall at $95,000 on 25,113 contracts.
ETH levels. Today's expiry — 25,743 contracts: corridor $2,460–$2,540, spot in its upper part; max pain$2,500 on Deribit, $2,510 across the combined book; put $2,100 (2,132), call $2,600 (7,125). Friday 16.10 in ether — 89,587 contracts.
Fuel. At the 07:16 UTC snapshot, under BTC within 5% of the market ($79,554–83,741) there are $30.3M of long positions against $32.1M yesterday; above the market within 5% — $48.3M of shorts against $87.3M: part of yesterday's shorts on the edge has closed. In ETH — $19.2M of longs below the market against $50.7M, and $2.8M of shorts above it against $0.3M. 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 there are no empty zones above the market; below it $76,000–$77,000 is empty; in ETH — $2,350–$2,400 under the market.
Stress test ±2%. In both assets a move within ±2% stays in the zone where dealers dampen it: the gamma flips sit 4.6% and 6.2% below the market. Above, in BTC — the $90,000 call wall.
OI flow.BTC put/call across all expiries: month 0.56 · week 0.56 · now 0.58. ETH0.55 · 0.56 · 0.54 (what put/call is).
Two options books. On the same expiries up to 30 days BTC put/call is 0.59 on Deribit against 1.45 on Bybit; ETH0.91 against 0.93.
IV by tenor.BTC 2d P37/C35 · 10d P34/C33 · 17d P35/C33, percentiles since February — 46th, 18th and 7th. ETH 2d P47/C47 · 10d P46/C44 · 17d P48/C46, percentiles 41st, 19th and 8th. ETHDVOL51.1 against 30-day realised HV42.5 — a premium of +8.6 (what the premium is).
💎SCENARIOS IN DETAIL 💠
The code's verdicts. From 12.10: the squeeze up through the short fuel was cancelled at its level — a low of $81,278 on the spot series the code uses, against the $82,450 level. The same low has already touched the trigger of the 12.10 slide, and the 12.10 corridor has broken out of its bounds; the code scores both at the deadline — tomorrow at 07:22 UTC.
The all-time tally (N counts only those that reached a verdict): squeeze up through the short fuel — 17 of 37, 16 more cancelled at their level; corridor — 22 of 43 plus 11 partial, 5 more cancelled; slide into the long fuel — 13 of 26, 15 more cancelled. The directional types are still no better than a coin toss.
The corridor holds — 50%. ⏱ 2 days, to 15.10. BTC stays within the near 2% of the market: $82,000–$85,350. Cancellation level: a touch of $79,500 — the lower edge of the five-percent zone.
Slide into the long fuel — 25%. ⏱ 2 days, to 15.10. Trigger: a touch of $82,000 — a break below the near 2%, into the zone where $30.3M of long liquidation lines sit under the market. Cancellation level: a touch of $85,350.
Squeeze up through the short fuel — 25%. ⏱ 2 days, to 15.10. Trigger: a touch of $85,350 — a break above the near 2%, where $48.3M of short liquidation lines sit above the market. Cancellation level: a touch of $82,000.
This is how we weigh the odds — not a promise; the code will compute the verdict from spot history.
🔭WHAT TO WATCH
• The address that flipped to short — 40× in bitcoin and 25× in ether (💠).
• Friday 16.10 — more than 16 thousand contracts in bitcoin and almost 90 thousand in ether (💠).
• Whether the largest short house keeps trimming its short (🔬).
🆓TAIL
📊POLYGON
(our own signals at real prices, not a backtest)
⚙️Pendulum · Wheel(the best of four versions, live curve on real prices)
+$348 on the day · +$8,626 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 494%−$1,125+$79,469 21.03
Dust Strategy V1 408%−$1,125+$26,934 20.03
Volatility Convergence V3 3639%+$452+$12,423 26.05
Skew 2.0 V2 4734%−$908+$7,776 26.05
Fear Flash V3 1127%−$139+$1,766 23.05
Deepest in the red: Wheel Trail V8 −$10,812 · Wheel Trail V6 −$9,823 · Wheel Trail V7 −$8,763 — three versions of one signal that hunts a reversal and pays for every attempt while the trend runs. No trade closed in the top five over the day. The most profitable signal wins only 4% of its 49 trades. Win rate isn't money.
📅PUBLIC LEDGER
(computed by code at the settlement price)
The market-maker corridor. Across 438 expiries since February the market-maker break-even corridor fixed a day before expiry held the settlement price 356 times — 81%. On Monday it held in bitcoin, not in ether. 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 159 of those same 438 expiries, 36%; on Monday none. Decision: we don't chase max pain.
The walls. The call wall held the settlement in 79 of 157 expiries where price reached it — 50%; the put wall in 45 of 109, 41%. On Monday price didn't touch the walls. Decision: we don't publish a wall without an expiry and a contract count, nor its percentage without a base.
Whale structures. The registry: 877 closed cases (5 of them from Bybit); across the 872 with a score, −$18.99M in total for the whales. Decision: win rate isn't money, and we don't copy whale structures — we track where they stand.
Polygon. Pendulum +$8,626 since 11.05 with +$348 on the day — both numbers from one series, the live curve of the best of four versions. Decision: we publish the tally daily with the same denominator and with the version's name.
📏Scale calibrator
• What protection costs. Our fear-and-greed index — 63 out of 100, the same as yesterday. 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 — 46th percentile of the hourly history since February, ten-day — 18th, 17 days out — 7th: the nearest insurance is almost normal, the far-dated is cheap.
• Which way protection tilts.BTCskew+1.7: puts slightly dearer than calls — yesterday the skew wasn't computed. 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.