老周手记

After spending two days at TOKEN2049, one thing stood out:

This year, people were talking a lot less about “the next 100x” and a lot more about custody, settlement, compliance, and collateral.

Institutions haven’t suddenly become believers in crypto.

They’ve simply realized that cross-border stablecoin settlements, tokenized assets, and 24/7 trading can genuinely save time and cut costs. But when it comes to putting money in, their first questions aren’t about token prices—they’re about who holds the assets, how prices are determined, and who to turn to if something goes wrong.

So this wave of “institutions moving on-chain” isn’t really about chasing a narrative.

Whoever can bring accounts, custody, liquidity, and risk management together is the one most likely to capture the trading flow that follows.

The venue was buzzing. The money was still cautious.

#TOKEN2049 #Crypto

This week is a super data week for the Non-Farm Payrolls and PCE—U.S. Treasury spreads are nearing inversion. This morning, $BTC briefly surged, but the real big money probably won’t make heavy bets over the next few days.

The market lacks a consistent order book with ongoing spot buy orders, so the sharp rally in the morning is very likely market makers borrowing sentiment to sweep up short liquidity. Everyone is waiting for the other shoe to drop, and we can just stay put for now.

Last night, $ETH surged up and then came back down to retest. Many people watched the order book and saw weakness, thinking the bull run is over.
But the on-chain funding signals are different. During those minutes of the sharp sell-off, a certain whale swept 31,979 ETH through 4 new wallets, with an average price of 2679, totaling $85 million.

After a big rally, this kind of pullback is normal. As long as there are still spot positions worth several tens of millions of dollars on the market absorbing liquidity on dips, the short-term sell-off isn’t a collapse.

There’s a lot of market noise—look at the real data instead.

As $BTC has surged above 87,000, the short positions of the top three H-L ranked shorts combined are already showing an unrealized loss of more than $70 million.

But after taking a closer look at the position structure, at least half of them are hedged positions for basis/derivatives arbitrage. Most likely, they’re holding spot, and opening short positions is simply to collect the high funding fees over the past few days—so there’s really no need to worry about being liquidated.

However, there are a few that are indeed pure shorts with no protection on the side. If the broader market continues to push higher again, it will be another round of fuel being delivered to the longs.

Today I was looking at the data on HL: the biggest whale in terms of contract open interest is $HYPE (0x082e...ca88). Its unrealized profit has already surpassed $80 million.

1.38 million tokens at the current price are worth roughly $130 million, with an average entry price of a bit over $38. Everyone’s been talking about how this guy made a huge amount on this run, but few people noticed that just in funding fees paid to the other side, he’s already been deducted nearly $6 million.

Someone might wonder: if the funding rate is so expensive, why not just buy spot?
The answer is: he can’t.

If you were to drop a $130 million order into the spot order book, it would instantly rocket the price sky-high—slippage would be enormous. To build a position this large, he can only go into the futures contracts to consume liquidity in the depth. And that $6 million funding cost can be said to be the “rent” he pays to the market for borrowing liquidity.

Don’t just envy others for catching a trend that goes up dozens of times—ask yourself first: if your position cost gets deducted tens of thousands of dollars every day just for “keeping your eyes open,” can your mindset really hold up?

For orders like this, having only technical skill isn’t enough—you need sufficient principal to back it. Ordinary people simply can’t pull it off.

There has never been a zero-cost way to get rich overnight in the market.

At noon, I was watching the board when I saw Binance with $USDE somehow instantly spike down to 0.92. I knew this order book was terribly flimsy.

Last night, the whole internet blew up with more than 800 million in short positions—looks like the bulls won big, but the market depth is as thin as paper. The pump relies on shorts getting liquidated and cascade selling pressure, not on real spot money buying. By the afternoon, once the short fuel runs out, even a bit of selling pressure is enough—anyone chasing longs at the high instantly gets trampled.

The foundation of this market is too fragile. Don’t let one or two bullish candles convince you it’s back on track. Hold your fire and let the bullets fly a little longer.

Last night, the whole internet went wild over a whopping 900+ million, with more than 800 million coming from short positions.

A lot of people, around 2,600, thought, “It’s basically up enough,” and casually opened a short—only to get liquidated instantly as price surged. But the on-chain whales move the opposite way:

When ETH spiked higher last night, one big player on Hyperliquid chased a long at an average price of 2,693, buying more than 40,000 ETH worth—$ETH . Their position size reached over $100 million. They held for 11 hours, and the unrealized profit on the books is currently $1.5 million.

Someone’s bound to wonder: with such a strong rally, why chase it—aren’t they afraid of getting hung up at the top?

Actually, once you’ve been in the market long enough, you’ll understand: when big money is making a breakout, they don’t really obsess over whether the entry is the absolute lowest. They only care whether the liquidity is deep enough. When shorts line up for liquidation, that’s when buy pressure is strongest and slippage is smallest—which is exactly the most comfortable entry window for large positions.

Right now, the broader market isn’t trading any macro narrative at all—it’s just the purest squeeze of the shorts.

Weak coins are basically being ignored. Today, one address cut and took profit on a $CRV position held for 3 years and still managed to lose 4 million in one go. All the money is tied up in BTC, ETH, and a few top liquidity pools.

In a one-way market, the most taboo thing is using your own principal to test a big player’s determination. If you can’t figure it out, it’s better to sit in cash and watch. Guessing the top against the trend is the easiest way to hand over money for free.

Ready to continue my “Encrypted Memoir”
After all, $FIL came back to life

Hahaha. The holders of this coin $FIL are most lacking in big fools. I have seen too many.

During the two weeks of business travel, I have been busy with project matters, so I will stop updating for now. During the journey, I gradually sorted out the timeline, and when I have some free time, I will continue with 'Encrypted Memoirs';
$FIL $ICP have performed quite well in the past two weeks. I wonder when the king of 2021, $XCH, will explode. I bought quite a bit at high prices back then, preparing to leave it for my son to inherit.

With the explosion of my $FIL long position at 05:18 on October 11, I completely emptied my Binance account of $FIL. As I recall, this account has always been receiving $FIL from external sources;
There were purchases made by myself;
There was mining;
There were dividends received;
And there were transfers from others as well;
From 2020 to 2025, $FIL brought me into the circle, five years felt like yesterday;
The first liquidation was on April 20, 2021, $FIL 185-125, I was liquidated at 128;
The second liquidation was on May 1, 2022, $FIL 17-11,
The third liquidation was on February 3, 2025, $FIL 4-1.96,
The fourth liquidation is on October 11, 2025, completely emptying the Binance account of $FIL;

I hold a long position, not to mention anything else, I trust jump