A Nov. 10 Hyperliquid sample cannot confirm a claim of more than $10 billion in leveraged Bitcoin (BTC) shorts by James Lavish, co-managing partner of Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.
At 7:49 a.m. ET (12:49 UTC), selected large accounts on Hyperliquid carried about $1.21 billion in BTC shorts and $868.24 million in longs. The reading covers only tracked accounts on one exchange and cannot establish the size of shorts across the market.
Lavish described the claimed exposure as cumulative shorts up to $83,000. He gave no list of positions or calculation behind the estimate.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) reported 9,866 short and 5,887 long CME Bitcoin futures contracts held by leveraged funds as of Oct. 27. Those earlier contract counts, discussed in EconoTimes coverage of Bitcoin futures positioning, measure a different market and cannot verify Lavish’s dollar figure.
Closing a short requires a purchase, which liquidation can force. The 7:49 a.m. reading does not show how much of Lavish’s claimed exposure is near liquidation or whether a short squeeze is underway.
