HYPE Whale Selling: $109M Sold After ICE Rewrote Its Hyperliquid Perps Post
HYPE whale selling: two wallets dumped $109M near $90 after ICE rewrote its Hyperliquid perps post. What funding, OI and CVD say about absorption.
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Launch Free Terminal →Two wallets sold about 1.2 million HYPE worth roughly $109 million in the days after Intercontinental Exchange announced its Hyperliquid perps plan, according to Lookonchain data reported by 24/7 Wall St.. The HYPE whale selling landed as ICE deleted and reposted its announcement with a regulatory caveat, and as the token stalled below its all-time high. For traders, the question is whether that supply was distribution into a news spike or profit-taking the order book could absorb.
Who sold the HYPE and at what price
Lookonchain tracked two addresses. Wallet 0x2685 sold 912,383 HYPE for about $82.09 million, with more than $10 million in profit on tokens bought roughly a month earlier, while wallet 0x648F sold 296,705 HYPE for about $26.72 million, booking $16.5 million on a position opened about 11 months earlier, per CryptoNews. Combined, that is about $108.81 million of sales and more than $26.5 million of realized profit.
Dividing proceeds by size puts both exits near $90 per token. That is close to where HYPE traded after the ICE news: The Block had HYPE near $91.21 on October 29 after a 15% daily gain, against an all-time high of $97.96 set the previous month. Both wallets bought before the October 29 announcement, per 24/7 Wall St.
What the reports leave out matters as much. CryptoNews notes that the destination of the tokens was not disclosed, including whether any went to an exchange, and that the owners and their reasons are unknown. Without a destination, "sold" means a realized trade, not necessarily a pile of tokens sitting on a centralized exchange waiting to hit a book.
The ICE post that changed overnight
The catalyst was real. ICE agreed to partner with Trade[XYZ] to bring Hyperliquid-based perpetual futures to the US, with ICE operating the markets and building dedicated exchange and clearing infrastructure, Trade[XYZ] designing them and Hyperliquid supplying the technology through HIP-3, per The Block. ICE is also making a strategic investment of undisclosed size, and Stanley Druckenmiller posted that he is "excited to be an investor in trade(xyz)."
Then the wording shifted. Journalist Eleanor Terrett reported that ICE removed its original post and replaced it with one stressing regulatory caveats, per 24/7 Wall St.. The revised message reads: "ICE and Trade[XYZ] plan to bring Hyperliquid-based perps to the U.S. Subject to regulatory approvals." Blockchain.News adds that retail access would run through US-regulated FCMs, including ICE's joint venture with OKX, once approvals are secured.
The deal itself did not change. What changed was the timeline the market could price: US regulators, including the CFTC, control approval, and 24/7 Wall St. notes the products could be months from launch.
How the HYPE order book absorbed $109 million
Before the sales, derivatives were running hot. On October 30, HYPE open interest rose 28% while volume rose almost eightfold, with funding positive and rising and CVD positive, meaning market buys dominated, per CoinDesk. HYPE had the second most positive funding of the coins CoinDesk tracked, behind only XMR.
Volume moved with it. 24/7 Wall St. put HYPE daily volume at $781.8 million on October 28, $2.93 billion on October 29 and $3.29 billion at its latest reading, against a prior week range of $456.4 million to $867.7 million. Against that turnover, $109 million spread over several days is a small share of flow, which helps explain why price dipped rather than broke.
The latest snapshot had HYPE at $88, down 2.6% in 24 hours but still up 15.5% on the week while Bitcoin fell 3.6% and Ethereum 3.5%, per 24/7 Wall St. Institutional flow cooled as well: the Bitwise Hyperliquid ETF took in $3.7 million on October 29, then US HYPE ETFs recorded no inflows on October 30.
HYPE levels and supply to watch into November 6
24/7 Wall St. frames two levels. A daily close below the 50-day average near $85 would suggest the ICE rally has ended, and a close above the $94 October high would suggest new buyers absorbed the whale supply. The 20-day average sits near $81 and the 200-day near $66.
Supply has a date on it. Tokenomist lists November 6 as the next scheduled unlock, for Core Contributors, per ad-hoc-news.de, and the project uses cliff releases for important allocations. The mechanics of that claim are covered in the HYPE unlock November 6 breakdown. On the demand side, the Assistance Fund buys HYPE with trading fees, so buybacks can only spend what fees generate, per 24/7 Wall St.
That combination makes the next week readable. If funding stays positive and open interest keeps climbing while large wallets sell spot, perp longs are absorbing supply on margin, which is the setup that unwinds fastest. If open interest falls and CVD flips negative near $85, the rally was carried by the headline and is now giving it back.
Tracking HYPE whale selling before the headline
Lookonchain surfaced these sales after they happened. The edge is catching size while it moves: a large holder sending HYPE toward an exchange, or a wallet that bought before a catalyst starting to scale out into the first volume spike.
Buildix lets you follow specific Hyperliquid wallets on the whale tracker and check the HYPE pair view for CVD, order book imbalance and open interest in the same window, so a whale exit can be read against whether the book is actually absorbing it.
ICE gave HYPE a story with a runway measured in months. Two early buyers decided $90 was enough of it, and the sessions into an unlock on the calendar will show whether the rest of the market agrees.