Wintermute Sits on About $160M in Crypto Shorts as Perpetuals Rally

Huoxing Finance reported that on Aug. 24, TradingBeats data showed broad gains across Hyperliquid perpetuals. Of the 76 major perpetual contracts that each saw more than $1 million in trading volume over the past 24 hours, 66 were higher—about 86.8%—with a median increase of roughly 4.6%. BTC was up about 1.8% and ETH about 2.7%, while several altcoins posted gains above 10%. Against the marketwide rally, three market-making addresses tagged as Wintermute, Cumberland and Auros absorbed heavy sell flow and collectively held around $230 million in crypto short positions versus about $9.93 million in longs, leaving net short exposure near $220 million. Their combined unrealized loss was approximately $6.92 million. TradingBeats estimates a single Wintermute address holds 61 short positions worth about $163 million. Its shorts in ETH, BTC, SOL and HYPE together total close to $100 million. Cumberland and Auros hold short positions of about $20.63 million and $46.87 million, respectively. Wintermute currently has 1,718 active orders—854 sells and 864 buys—across 77 contracts, with 74 contracts displaying two-sided quotes. Auros is also posting both bids and offers in most assets, consistent with typical market-making behavior. As prices rise and aggressive buying lifts ask-side liquidity, market makers on the other side of those trades are pushed into selling more contracts, shifting perpetual inventories toward short exposure. The roughly $160 million Wintermute short position is being framed as a byproduct of a one-way rally transferring risk inventory to liquidity providers. As of press time, Wintermute had begun systematically covering shorts and trimming net short exposure, aligning with market-making inventory rebalancing patterns.