Key Takeaways
You know times are interesting in cryptoland when Wintermute, the market-making equivalent of Discworld’s omnipresent serpent, starts eyeing altcoins and meme tokens the way Granny Weatherwax eyes her broom-suspiciously and with every intent to keep it well away from her person. 🧙♀️
Behind the wizard’s curtain-if markets were a pantomime, and let’s face it, sometimes they absolutely are-Wintermute has been busy. Busy doing what, you ask? Well, mostly betting that a lot of your favorite digital shinies are going to fall harder than a buttered bread landing butter side down.
Why the sudden gloom and doom? Is it a prophecy? Or just another Tuesday?
A Defensive Portfolio and Calculated Conviction (Whatever That Means This Week)
Wintermute’s portfolio right now looks like an insurance salesman on a rainy day: 70% bearish, just enough optimism to keep the rain off, but mostly, they’re selling you umbrellas. Out of ten bets, nearly all are short. For context, imagine a lifeboat with ten people and seven of them drilling holes for “ventilation.” 🛶
The rare rays of hope? A modest handful: Bitcoin [BTC], Sui [SUI], Dogecoin [DOGE], and the S&P 500 [SPX]. But even then, don’t break out the party hats-they’re more like those birthday candles that never stay lit.
The single shining beacon-Wintermute’s $10.38 million Bitcoin long (leveraged enough to make a wizard squint suspiciously)-squeaks out a 13.95% return. But the real fireworks? All from the shorts: Official Trump [TRUMP] and Ripple [XRP] are dropping gold coins like a leaky dragon’s hoard, with 127.99% and 78.11% returns.
It’s either genius or absolute madness, but then, in finance, is there really a difference?
A Vote of No Confidence in Altcoins?
If Wintermute’s portfolio was a Discworld city, altcoins would be the Ankh-Morpork river-deeply suspicious and best viewed from a distance.
They’ve gone all-in shorting major altcoins: Ethereum [ETH], Solana [SOL], and Curve DAO [CRV], presumably after seeing something on the charts that made even veteran traders want to build a bunker.
The firm’s ETH short alone: $26.3 million at 15x leverage (cue ominous thunder). The result? A brisk -27.33% return. Apparently, “high conviction” also means “bring me the big red emergency phone.”
Meanwhile, the true glory: shorting small-cap tokens like Fartcoin [FARTCOIN] and Pump.fun [PUMP], because nothing says “serious investment” like betting against tokens named after flatulence and dubious amusement park rides.
Derivatives Traders Still Bullish (Because Why Not?), But SOL Faces Headwinds
Even as Wintermute polishes its crystal ball of gloom, the brave (or hopelessly optimistic) derivatives traders are still betting long. Funding Rates for BTC and ETH? Still positive on Binance, BitMEX, Bybit, and OKX. Maybe it’s the principle of optimism, maybe nobody wants to blink first.
Open Interest on BTC and ETH remains at numbers so large they’d make even Lord Vetinari’s accountant break out in hives: ~$79.55 billion for BTC, $46.97 billion for ETH, according to Coinalyze.
As for Solana, the canary’s stopped singing and is starting to cough.
SOL Funding Rates have turned negative, and Open Interest slid from “worrying” to “are we still on the mountain or is this a cliff?”-from $12 billion to $9.14 billion. If you’re keeping score, Wintermute has a $14.7 million short here. It’s as if they passed the early warning system and set it on fire.
If BTC or ETH join the negative funding party, well, you might want to check if your cryptos know how to swim.
Until that day, Solana is basically the market’s version of a weathered street prophet shouting, “The end is nigh!”
Wintermute’s Small Cap Shorts – Retail Beware?
If you’re holding TRUMP, FARTCOIN, or PUMP, two things: 1. That’s very brave, and 2. Wintermute is possibly betting their lunch money against you. 📉
TRUMP Futures Open Interest: $368 million. FARTCOIN: $687 million at press time. Somewhere, a spreadsheet is screaming.
PUMP, despite falling flat, hangs on with $434 million OI. These are likely the financial equivalent of a hedgehog playing chicken with a steamroller-Wintermute shorts as the crowd stampedes in.
XRP, with a spectacular $7.23B in OI, proves that nothing draws a crowd like the possibility of everyone being wrong at once. For the aspiring hero (or at least someone who’d like to keep their shirt), sudden spikes in OI here are less “Once in a Lifetime Opportunity” and more “Trapdoor Spiders Welcome.”
Takeaway: If everyone’s running into the same burning building, check if Wintermute’s already sold the fire insurance and is waiting outside with a glass of lemonade.
Their strategy shows a wizard-level divergence from the cheery optimism in derivatives. If funding rates for BTC or ETH go sour, Wintermute could be cackling all the way to the bank. Until then, well-don’t trip on your own wizard robes. 🪄
Read More
- USD PHP PREDICTION
- ETH PREDICTION. ETH cryptocurrency
- LTC PREDICTION. LTC cryptocurrency
- USD PEN PREDICTION
- VET PREDICTION. VET cryptocurrency
- INR RUB PREDICTION
- CNY RUB PREDICTION
- NEXO PREDICTION. NEXO cryptocurrency
- TON PREDICTION. TON cryptocurrency
- ONDO PREDICTION. ONDO cryptocurrency
2025-08-05 06:22