Hyperliquid's trading landscape: from money-making machine to eternal loser

Various trading scenarios are unfolding on the Hyperliquid platform. Some individuals turn the tide overnight with precise market insights, while others sink deeper due to obsession. By analyzing on-chain data, we can see the true faces behind these big players—far from being god-like entities, they each have their own unique trading styles.

Market Reversal Indicators: Why the Eternal Bull Always Seems to Fail

Among the accounts tracked on-chain, one address is known for its unique loss pattern. This trader has lost $46.5 million on Hyperliquid and is a regular on the platform’s loss leaderboard.

His trading logic appears simple yet deadly—94% of his positions are long, only 6% are short. Under this one-sided betting strategy, when the market declines, the outcome is predetermined. He lost $46.88 million on longs but made $380,000 on shorts.

The deeper issue lies in his risk management philosophy. He wins quite often, with a win rate of 77%, but the key problem is—the ratio of profit to loss (zysku do straty) is 1 to 8.6. This means he sacrifices $8.60 in losses to earn just $1 in profit. When profitable positions are quickly closed (average holding time 31 hours), while losing positions are held stubbornly (average loss duration 109 hours), this paradox becomes especially ironic.

His gains are like grains of rice scattered to birds—nutritional but fleeting—while losses are as shocking as a financial crash. During the market turbulence on October 11, his previous unrealized profit of $15 million evaporated instantly, turning into over $11 million in losses. Every subsequent trade continues to widen this hole.

The Patience of the Ambusher: Only One Trade Every Six Months, Yet Earns $98.39 Million

Contrasting sharply with the high-frequency trader above, another big player employs a completely different strategy. This trader executed only 5 trades in half a year, but with an 80% success rate and nearly $100 million in profit, it says everything.

His fame comes from a legendary move—shorted Bitcoin with $80 million on October 11, and five days later, recovered over $92 million in profit. At that moment, he executed a perfect sniping. He then chose not to be greedy and retreated. On October 20, he shorted again precisely and earned another $6.34 million.

A short-term long position on November 8 resulted in a $1.3 million loss, which is just a drop in the bucket for him. Currently, he holds $269 million in long positions on Ethereum, with a profit of about $17.29 million. This account is like a crocodile lying in wait—motionless most of the time, but every strike bites off the most bountiful fruits of the market.

Algorithm Rulers: Market Makers with Tens of Thousands of Trades Per Day

Address 0x5b5d51203a0f9079f8aeb098a6523a13f298c060 ranks first on Hyperliquid’s profit leaderboard. This account has deposited $1.11 billion, withdrawn $1.16 billion, and currently has an unrealized profit of about $143 million.

This is a typical market maker big account. It holds multiple underlying positions, such as short positions on Ethereum and other tokens. Then, through high-frequency algorithms, it adjusts its positions every second to profit from trend movements, as well as from spreads and arbitrage opportunities in high-frequency trading.

The second-ranked account reflects the same trend—51% of trades are order placements, simultaneously placing orders on both sides of the order book to profit from tiny price fluctuations. Although each trade averages only $733, executing 1,394 trades per day amounts to daily earnings in the tens of thousands of dollars.

This style is nearly impossible for ordinary traders to replicate—market makers benefit from lower fees, faster algorithms, and hardware support.

The Miracle of Small Accounts: From 85% Losses to 21 Consecutive Wins in a Week

One case stands out. This account invested only $46,000, seemingly an ordinary retail trader. But his story demonstrates what it means to be reborn from the ashes.

Before late November, his trading was a mess—85% loss rate, shrinking account balance, chaotic positions, stubbornly holding losing small-cap positions. But starting December 2, everything changed.

By December 9, he had won 21 trades in a row, with his account skyrocketing from $129 to $29,000, showing an exponential growth curve:

December 3: Opened a test position of 1 Ethereum, earning $37. December 5: Confidence renewed, increased position to 5-8 ETH, profit of $200. December 7: Position increased to 20 ETH, profit of $1,000. December 8: 50-80 ETH, profit of $4,000. December 9: 95 ETH, profit of $5,200.

The transformation is clear: first, he shifted from diversified investments to focusing solely on Ethereum (after trading over ten different coins). Second, he stopped obsessively holding losing positions and switched to quick trading—average holding time dropped from 33.76 hours to 4.98 hours. Third, he adopted a “rolling position increase” method—adding proportionally when funds grow, a classic approach for rapid small-cap growth.

But risks also increased. Average leverage rose from 3.89x to about 6.02x. When the market surged rapidly, he already faced over $9,000 in unrealized losses, slashing previous gains. The exponential growth curve suddenly turned sharply downward.

The Cost of Obsession: The Eternal Bull Preferring Single Tokens

The story of the last big player is a warning. With a total investment of $236 million, 86.32% of his positions are long. In over 700 trades, 650 are longs.

He lost $5.87 million on longs, earning only $189,000 on shorts. Although a drawdown of 2.4% on over $200 million in trading volume seems manageable, the problem lies in his position structure.

The real wound comes from a single token—SOL, with a loss of up to $9.48 million. Excluding SOL losses, he earned over $4 million across other tokens (FARTCOIN, SUI, ETH, BTC). Clearly, he has an obsession with SOL, repeatedly going long and being “face-slapped” by downward trends.

This case starkly illustrates: even with over $100 million in an account, if you develop emotional attachment or obsession with a single token, the market can easily destroy you.

Final Lessons

In this abyss of big players, algorithms, and insiders, there is no “holy grail” strategy. For ordinary investors, most of these big players’ operations are impossible to replicate.

What’s truly worth learning is not how they make billions, but how to avoid becoming the eternal loser like the first case—clinging to losing positions and refusing to admit mistakes. Also, understand that competing with tireless algorithms using limited capital and speed is inherently an unequal battle.

Respect market laws, follow trend directions—perhaps this is the most valuable lesson in trading.