BTC, ETH, XRP Tumble as Wintermute Builds Heavy Short Positions

Nearly $100 million in longs were wrecked in the past hour.

Bitcoin’s price suddenly dipped to $75,500 after it failed to remain above $77,000 during the weekend. Most altcoins have followed suit, including the largest ones, which performed a lot better on Friday and Saturday.

This volatility, untypical for the weekend, came amid reports that one of the most prominent market makers, Wintermute, had gone short on a few fronts.

At first, Onchain Lens noted that the company sent nearly $60 million in BTC and SOL to Binance and Coinbase, likely intending to sell. In addition, the analytics resource said Wintermute has built up a massive futures position on Hyperliquid.

Although current on-chain data shows that the company has a $13.85 million long position, the lion’s share of this leveraged trade is shorting the market – $146.19 million.

Bitcoin’s price, which had one of its most impressive weeks in years, surging from $64,000 to almost $80,000 in less than 48 hours, reacted with a dip on Sunday morning. The asset had calmed at over $77,000 but slipped by over a grand and a half to $75,500. It found some support there, and now sits above $76,000, but it’s still 2% down on the day.