A crypto whale with a history of profitable trades has managed to come out on top after opening a massive short position on Bitcoin (BTC).

Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain says a deep-pocketed trader built a 3,940 BTC short position worth $332 million by ramping up leverage to 40x.

Short-selling is the act of borrowing an asset from an exchange or broker to sell it in hopes of buying back lower to pocket the difference.

According to Lookonchain, the whale initially witnessed unrealized losses to the tune of more than $1 million.

“Entry price: $84,040.8
Liquidation price: $85,300.”

On top of choppy price action, the analytics firm says the whale had to fend off a team of traders who tried to boost the price of Bitcoin in an effort to liquidate the deep-pocketed investor’s massive short position.

“[A pseudonymous trader] publicly formed a team to hunt this whale who shorted BTC with 40x leverage.

Just one hour later, the team was in action, driving BTC above $84,690 in a short period.”

Lookonchain notes that the whale escaped liquidation by adding $5 million worth of the stablecoin USDC to their account.

“The whale continued to increase his position to short BTC.

Currently, the whale is profiting from closing positions through TWAP (time-weighted average price).

His current position is 5,406 BTC($449 million), with an unrealized profit of $4.4 million.”

When trading with leverage, users can add more funds to their accounts and put up more collateral to move their liquidation price further away from their price entry. While the move reduces the odds of getting liquidated, traders run the risk of losing more money if the asset moves against their position.

Lookonchain has been keeping tabs on the whale in question, noting that the trader had a 100% hit rate in one month to rack up $16.39 million in profits.

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Generated Image: Midjourney