Whale loses $22,000 then shorts again, what signals are being sent as the giant whale's strategy disagreements deepen

2026-01-08 05:58:38

A whale just today completed a rapid strategic shift: first closing a 136 BTC long position with a loss of $22,000, then immediately opening a short position on 80 BTC with 40x leverage. This is not an isolated event but another reflection of the deepening market divergence between bulls and bears. According to the latest news, BTC is currently priced at $90,786.30, down 1.95% over the past 24 hours, with subtle changes in market sentiment underway.

Whale’s Rapid Turnaround

Details of the long position closure

This whale closed a 40x leveraged long position of 136 BTC at 13:27 today, totaling approximately $12.4 million. Although the loss was only $22,000 (relatively small compared to the position size), the timing of the closure is noteworthy. At that moment, BTC was still above $91,000, indicating that the whale may have been proactively stopping loss rather than being forced to liquidate.

Immediate opening of a short position

More interestingly, instead of waiting on the sidelines, this whale immediately opened an 80 BTC short position with 40x leverage (about $7.26 million) at an average entry price of $90,997.7. Currently, this short position is showing a slight unrealized profit, suggesting that the price has continued to decline after its entry.

Market Context: Deepening Bull-Bear Divergence

According to the latest information, not only is this whale adjusting its strategy, but the entire whale camp in the market is showing clear signs of divergence:

Whale Behavior	Trend	Scale
Bulls	Stopped out of BTC longs with a loss of $1.689 million, but also added 980 BTC longs	$90.87 million in new longs
Bears	Took profits on $41.33 million BTC shorts with a profit of $12,800, while increasing short positions	Bears account for about 90%
Observers	Closed positions and remain on the sidelines, no new positions	Multiple whale addresses

This coexistence of bullish and bearish strategies, along with frequent adjustments, typically indicates that the market is at a critical decision point.

Personal opinion

The whale’s shift from long to short may signal two things: first, a short-term pessimistic outlook on BTC price movement; second, a change in perception of the current price level. Considering BTC’s 1.95% decline over the past 24 hours and a 3.69% increase over the past 7 days, the market is digesting previous gains, and short-term correction pressure is indeed present.

Details to Watch

In the short term, the establishment of large short positions like this could exert downward pressure on the price. However, from a broader perspective, the market has not formed a consensus among bears—simultaneously, some whales are increasing long positions, indicating significant disagreement among participants about the future trend.

Another point to note is that this whale chose to leverage 40x for its short, implying high confidence in a downward move, but also amplifying risk. If BTC’s price reverses upward, this short position could face rapid liquidation.

Summary

This whale’s strategic shift is an important indicator of changing market sentiment, but it should not be used as the sole basis for decision-making. Key points to observe are: the deepening of market divergence between bulls and bears, frequent adjustments by whales, short-term price pressure, and the lack of a clear trend consensus. Going forward, attention should be paid to whether more whales follow suit in shorting and whether BTC can hold the critical support level of $90,000.

BTC1,92%

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