2026

Lens

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 <a href="https://x.com/OnchainLens/status/2091351205931102230" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">noted</a> 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.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
 WINTERMUTE IS HEAVILY SHORT <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/16.0.1/72x72/1f43b.png" alt="🐻" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;">
 Wintermute currently holds $160.03M in open positions on Hyperliquid, with $146.19M short and just $13.85M long.
 The positions are sitting at a combined unrealized loss of $3.66M, while earning $2.14M in funding.
 Despite this, Wintermute remains… <a href="https://t.co/fOYjGCyEpz" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">pic.twitter.com/fOYjGCyEpz</a>
 — Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens) <a href="https://x.com/OnchainLens/status/2091293631001063635?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">August 22, 2026</a>
</blockquote>
Bitcoin’s price, which had one of its most impressive weeks in years, <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/btc-hit-3-month-high-eth-topped-2-4k-xrp-soared-40-in-48-hours-weekly-crypto-recap/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">surging</a> 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.
Many altcoins have posted more painful losses. ETH has dropped by 5% to well below $2,400, while XRP is down by 6.5%. Ripple’s token was <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/xrp-explodes-65-and-flips-bnb-as-altcoins-steal-the-show-weekend-watch/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">rejected</a> at $1.70 on Friday evening and Saturday morning, and is now back below $1.50.
CoinGlass data shows that almost $100 million in logs were wrecked in the past hour, with BTC and ETH holding the same share of around $41.5 million each. On a daily scale, the total liquidations top $350 million, with more than 90,000 traders getting wrecked, which is a lot for a weekend.
This Sunday correction came after a few signals <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/bitcoin-shows-first-warning-signs-after-15k-surge-in-2-days/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">suggested</a> that bitcoin is due for a pullback after gaining $15,000 in days.
The post <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/btc-eth-xrp-tumble-as-wintermute-builds-heavy-short-positions/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">BTC, ETH, XRP Tumble as Wintermute Builds Heavy Short Positions</a> appeared first on <a href="https://cryptopotato.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">CryptoPotato</a>.

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

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