When bitcoin surged from around $62,000 to above $77,000 in a matter of days last week, the rally wiped out $3 billion from leveraged short sellers who had accumulated bearish positions during the previous market downturn. For major crypto trading firms, however, the sharp price increase created an opportunity that did not depend on predicting bitcoin’s next move.
Leading digital-asset trading firms including Abraxas Capital, Fasanara Capital and Wintermute have quietly accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in short perpetual futures positions on Hyperliquid, an on-chain derivatives exchange.
According to on-chain data tracked by Lookonchain, the three firms collectively hold short positions totaling 138,569 $ETH, worth roughly $338 million, and 3,425 $BTC, valued at approximately $265 million.
At the same time, Abraxas Capital has been withdrawing large amounts of spot cryptocurrency from centralized exchanges. Data from Arkham Intelligence shows that the firm removed 73,872 $ETH, worth approximately $173 million, from Binance over the past four days alone.
Crypto firms target funding yields instead of market direction
The strategy is known as a cash-and-carry trade, or basis trade, and it has become one of the most widely used yield-generating strategies in crypto markets during bullish periods.
The mechanics are straightforward: traders hold a spot cryptocurrency position while simultaneously shorting an equivalent amount through perpetual futures. Because the two positions largely offset each other, the trader has limited exposure to changes in the asset’s price.
Instead, the firms seek to capture the funding rate — a periodic payment that traders holding long positions pay to short sellers when market sentiment is bullish.
