The Hyperliquid wallet identified as pension‐usdt.eth, which had been shorting Ethereum for two months, was forced out of its short position on 50,000 $ETH amid a sharp price surge. The liquidation process, lasting 12 seconds, involved five forced sell orders — these transactions further pushed prices higher.
On Thursday morning, the position was closed after a rise in the prices of major tokens, resulting in the trader losing nearly $24 million. Previously, this wallet was considered one of the most successful short sellers of the year, with total profits from bets against cryptocurrencies reaching about $49 million.
Recent trades yielded a series of wins: nearly $6 million from shorting 60,000 $ETH (position closed in June), $3.6 million from shorting 1,400 BTC in the same month, and $1.7 million from another bet against Bitcoin in March.
The position liquidation occurred from 04:51:03 to 04:51:15 according to Hyperliquid data. During this time, four batches of ETH were forcibly sold:
- 9,989 $ETH at a price of $2,193;
- 20,698 $ETH at $2,209;
- 15,830 $ETH at $2,214;
- 1,871 $ETH at $2,236.
The remaining 1,417 $ETH found no buyers by the end of the process, and Hyperliquid absorbed this volume into a special fund created for such situations.
In just 12 seconds, the price of ETH rose by $43. The forced sale of the trader's assets partially triggered this rise, and each additional dollar made closing the remaining parts of the position more expensive.
The position was held for 1,445 hours — just over two months. This period coincided with Bitcoin trading below $65,000, making bets against it seem like a sure win. However, the situation changed after the U.S. Treasury announced a bond buyback on Wednesday: over the past 24 hours, ETH rose by $18 to nearly $70,000.
The wallet balance is now empty. According to Hyperliquid's leaderboard, the wallet under the display name "Pension Fund" holds just $35.61 and shows a 100% decline against a trading volume of $111.76 million during this period.
This is not the largest loss of the day. The greatest damage was suffered by the owner of a $48.8 million Bitcoin position also held on Hyperliquid. In total, $2.74 billion in shorts were liquidated in the market over 24 hours — the largest wave of forced position closures since 2021.
