An anonymous Tornado Cash whale sent $7 million to Hyperliquid to open a large long on Bitcoin this morning. According to Lookonchain and Onchain Lens, the wallet went in with aggressive 20x leverage with the plan to profit from Bitcoin crushing Ether.
Large holders usually run funds through mixers to move capital privately or to get ready to cash out. This case is unusual as the movement of these funds had just previously been tracked to a chain of addresses belonging to the hackers who drained the derivatives platform Drift Protocol of $290 million in April 2026.
Some blockchain researchers warn against jumping to conclusions about where the funds came from. There's still no direct evidence: Tornado Cash covers its tracks well, and the link between the wallet and specific hacks rests only on circumstantial matches in volume.
A very complex scheme (even for North Korea)
After starting as a brand-new address that withdrew 3,100 ETH from Tornado Cash, the unknown later swapped all of the Ether through CoW Swap on the spot, locking in $6.92 million in USDC. From there, the money went to the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid as collateral for future trades.
On the exchange, the whale didn't try to guess where the market was headed and just split the collateral in half, turned on 20x cross leverage and built a position worth about $26 million in total. The position consisted of $12.84 million at an entry price of $75,762.2 and an Ethereum short of 5,740 ETH worth $12.83 million.
So far, the bet is working. Bitcoin is holding near local highs, and the gain on the BTC long fully covers the drawdown from altcoin short. Add to this the earnings on funding, collecting a regular premium from other traders for holding the ETH short.
This is a textbook dominance pair trade, where the investor couldn't care less whether the industry as a whole goes up or down and the only thing that matters is the spread - the price gap between the two largest coins.
If Bitcoin rises faster than Ether, or if Ether falls harder than Bitcoin in a broad market crash, the trade profits.
The math is elegant, but 20x leverage is always a high risk. Should Ethereum rip higher while Bitcoin stays stuck in a range, the margin will be wiped out in seconds as Hyperliquid's cross-margin system will force-close the orders, and the investor will lose the entire $6.92 million. The liquidation price is set at $37,014.09 for BTC and $3,343.60 for ETH.
