Shorting HYPE Loses $40 Million, How Much Ammo Does Meme's Top Short Seller loracle Have Left?

Original ｜Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )

Author ｜Golem ( @web3_golem )

In the past month or two, the Meme market has been thriving, with many Meme coins surpassing a market cap of $100 million, as if everyone on the bandwagon is immersed in the joy of the Meme bull market. However, there is one stubborn whale who is going against the trend, shorting the current popular Meme coins under pressure.

This whale is loracle, the undisputed top short seller of Meme coins in this round.

According to on-chain data, loracle currently holds a 3x leveraged short position in PONS on Hypeliquid, with a position of 27.75 million PONS, valued at over $16.5 million, with an average opening price of $0.665. Due to the recent collective pullback of Meme coins, as of the time of writing, he has an unrealized profit of about $1 million. At the same time, loracle is also the top short seller of CASHCAT, holding a 3x leveraged short position in CASHCAT with 36.3 million CASHCAT, valued at over $6.2 million, with an average opening price of $0.2, and an unrealized profit of about $1.3 million as of the time of writing.

When PONS reached an all-time high, loracle's short position in PONS peaked with an unrealized loss of over $6.9 million. An overseas KOL, MLM, once attempted to form a team to "hunt" loracle, claiming on X platform that they had raised a double-digit million fund, but no action was taken. Loracle seems unfazed by the public exposure of his positions; he even publicly called out Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, hoping he could coordinate with market makers to increase liquidity for the PONS/USDG market.

Despite loracle currently being in a profitable state with his short positions in Meme, a statistical review of all his on-chain positions and Hyperliquid's historical profits and losses reveals that loracle is still down about $25 million overall. The main on-chain trading addresses of loracle are:

1. 0xefe4c06b6d310978bead596e1798a4fc1d9d194b
2. 0x8def9f50456c6c4e37fa5d3d57f108ed23992dae

The well-known "infinite ammo" and contract gambling buddy, as of now, has a total loss of about $30 million on Hyperliquid. Loracle's peak unrealized loss (around $70 million) even surpassed that of his buddy. The buddy and loracle are two sides of the same coin; one loves to go long, while the other loves to short, but they both seem to have infinite ammo.

So, what is loracle's background, and where does his funding come from? Odaily Planet Daily will delve into this whale's trading history and past in this article.

An Early Contributor to Hyperliquid and the Largest Short Seller of HYPE

Loracle is an early contributor to the Hyperliquid ecosystem. He founded hypurr.fun in 2024, a Telegram-based Hyperliquid ecosystem Launchpad, which at the time sparked a significant wealth effect.

After hypurr.fun collapsed, loracle turned to high-leverage perpetual contract trading on Hyperliquid. His style is aggressive, with position sizes often reaching tens of millions of dollars.

Initially, loracle started with about $7.44 million in capital, making profits by going long on HYPE + BTC/ETH swings. After more than 10 months of effort, by early 2026, his account profit quickly reached about $42 million, achieving around $11.5 million in profit in a single week, and at one point became the largest HYPE bull on-chain.

Subsequently, loracle diversified his trading, taking positions in NVDA, PAXG, crude oil, ZEC, TON, LIT, etc., combining long and short positions, and was once referred to as a crypto-native macro trader, maintaining cumulative profits around $37 million until around May this year.

Shorting HYPE Results in Over $40 Million Loss

However, things took a turn afterward; the former major contributor to the Hyperliquid ecosystem and largest bull turned into the largest short seller of HYPE, with nominal positions peaking at over $100 million, and as of now, his positions are still down about $9 million.

At the end of April, loracle opened his first position, worth about $11 million, with a 5x leveraged short on HYPE when the price was around $40. As May progressed, HYPE continued to rise, and the "unbelieving" loracle continued to short HYPE. By the end of May, reports indicated that loracle's short position in HYPE had reached $103 million.

At the beginning of June, HYPE hit an all-time high of $75, and loracle finally couldn't withstand the pressure and began to close positions. In just about a month, loracle wiped out the over $40 million in perpetual contract profits he had accumulated over 10 months. After completely closing his positions on June 2, he had lost over $46 million on HYPE.

After this significant loss, loracle's contract operations began to seem off...

Blinded by losses, loracle performed a classic retail investor move—turning to go long on HYPE. According to on-chain data, after closing his HYPE short position, on June 3, loracle opened a long position of 1.36 million HYPE, valued at about $17 million, with an average opening price of $70.5. However, loracle's long position not only opened at the highest point but also closed at the lowest point. As HYPE continued to decline in July, loracle finally closed his HYPE long position on July 30 at an average price of $54.57, incurring a loss of about $2.3 million.

Just a few days after closing his HYPE long position, loracle opened a 3x leveraged short position in HYPE at the beginning of August, with his HYPE short position's nominal value peaking at over $54 million. As HYPE prices rose again at the end of August, loracle began to reduce his short positions. As of now, loracle still holds 363,300 HYPE, valued at about $28 million, with an unrealized loss of about $9 million, and a liquidation price of $166.

From the historical total profit and loss perspective, loracle has lost over $40 million in HYPE trading, a loss that far exceeds his profits from cryptocurrencies like BTC, ETH, and commodities.

Infinite Ammo Still Comes from HYPE, Once Staked Nearly 5 Million HYPE

As of the time of writing, loracle's total contract loss is about $25 million. However, some on-chain analysts previously believed that loracle did not short HYPE naked, as he, being an early contributor to Hyperliquid, holds a large amount of HYPE spot, valued at over hundreds of millions, most of which is staked. Therefore, loracle's short position in HYPE was considered a hedging operation.

Such a massive HYPE spot position is also the source of loracle's infinite ammo for contracts. According to multiple on-chain analysts, the following two HYPE staking addresses belong to loracle:

1. 0xe44bd27c9f10fa2f89fdb3ab4b4f0e460da29ea8
2. 0xfae95f601f3a25ace60d19dbb929f2a5c57e3571

Statistics show that at their peak, these two addresses had a total of 4.948 million HYPE staked, which, based on the current HYPE price, has a total value of $385 million.

However, now address 2 has fully withdrawn the initially staked 3.35 million HYPE, and address 1 has only 96,940 HYPE remaining staked. Adding the 240,000 HYPE held in the aforementioned trading address 2, loracle currently holds about 336,000 HYPE, with a total value of about $26.2 million.

It seems that loracle would be better off holding onto HYPE spot rather than proving himself through contract trading. But this is all hindsight analysis; in reality, his substantial losses mainly came from selling HYPE spot after encountering massive losses.

Starting in April this year, loracle began to gradually sell off his holdings of HYPE. In early April, loracle sold about 450,000 HYPE at an average price of $35, totaling about $15 million. In May, loracle unlocked a total of 2.008 million HYPE in three rounds, and in a clearly traceable on-chain record, he sold 557,000 HYPE on May 21 (the day HYPE first broke its previous high), worth about $33.35 million.

Loracle can be said to be "made by HYPE, and defeated by HYPE." As long as one does not leave the gambling table, there is always a chance to turn things around. However, at least from the past experiences of whales on Hyperliquid, this principle does not hold; there are numerous cases of accounts going from being in the spotlight to zero. Ultimately, what will be the fate of this former top short seller of HYPE, now the top short seller of Meme? Odaily Planet Daily will continue to follow up.