After the Federal Reserve (Fed) announced rate cuts, large whale wallets started investing capital in long positions of Ethereum (ETH). These actions show strong confidence in the bullish potential of ETH, but also increase the overall risk.
Various factors indicate that their long positions could be liquidated soon if there is no effective risk management.
How much confidence do whales have in their long positions of Ethereum?
The behavior of whales provides a clear insight into current sentiment. The on-chain tracking account Lookonchain reported that a known whale, considered an OG of Bitcoin, recently increased a long position in Hyperliquid to 120,094 ETH. The liquidation price is only $2,234.
This position currently shows a PnL loss of over $13.5 million in 24 hours.
Similarly, another known trader, Machi Big Brother, holds a long position of 6,000 ETH with a liquidation price of $3,152.
Additionally, the on-chain data platform Arkham reported that the Chinese whale trader who predicted the market crash on 10/10 now has a long ETH position of $300 million in Hyperliquid.
The activity of whales in long positions of ETH reflects their expectation of a price increase in the short term. However, behind this optimism lies a significant risk due to the high levels of leverage in Ethereum.
The leverage of ETH is reaching dangerous levels.
CryptoQuant data shows that the Estimated Leverage Ratio of ETH on Binance has reached 0.579 — the highest level in history. This level indicates extremely aggressive use of leverage. Even a small price variation could trigger a domino effect.
"A leverage ratio this high means that the volume of open contracts financed by leverage is increasing faster than the volume of real assets on the platform. When this happens, the market becomes more vulnerable to sudden price movements, as traders are more likely to be liquidated—whether in a bullish or bearish trend," commented analyst Arab Chain.
Historical data indicates that similar peaks often coincide with periods of strong price pressure and often signal local tops in the market.
The weakness of the spot market increases the risk.
The spot market also shows clear signs of weakness. Crypto market observer Wu Blockchain reported that the volume of spot trading on major exchanges fell by 28% in November 2025 compared to October.
Another report from BeInCrypto highlighted that stablecoin inflows to exchanges have fallen by 50%, dropping from $158 billion in August to $78 billion today.
Overall, the low purchasing power in the spot market, high leverage, and decreasing stablecoin reserves reduce ETH's ability to recover. These conditions may pose significant liquidation risk to the long positions of the whales.
