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

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 noted 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.

WINTERMUTE IS HEAVILY SHORT

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… pic.twitter.com/fOYjGCyEpz

— Onchain Lens (@OnchainLens) August 22, 2026

Bitcoin’s price, which had one of its most impressive weeks in years, surging 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 rejected 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 suggested that bitcoin is due for a pullback after gaining $15,000 in days.