Someone really likes Monero right now. A newly created wallet dropped 3.56 million USDC onto Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetual exchange, and immediately opened a leveraged long position on 36,000 XMR tokens. At entry prices hovering between $395 and $400, the notional value of the trade clocks in at roughly $14.33 million.
The trader then set a take-profit ladder between $475 and $516, suggesting they’re expecting XMR to rally another 20% to 30% from current levels.
Breaking down the trade
The position uses approximately 4x leverage, meaning the trader’s $3.56 million in deposited collateral is controlling a position worth more than four times that amount.
On-chain analytics from Lookonchain first flagged the whale activity on August 10, 2026. The wallet in question appears to have been created specifically for this trade, which is a common pattern among large traders looking to keep their broader portfolio activity under wraps.
XMR has gained nearly 10% over the past week, trading in a range between $393 and $402 after breaking through a descending trendline that had been capping price action.
Hyperliquid is a decentralized exchange specializing in perpetual futures that operates on its own Layer-1 blockchain to facilitate on-chain order books and leveraged trading. Perpetual futures allow traders to bet on price movements without actually buying the underlying asset — you’re trading a synthetic contract that tracks XMR’s price, settled in stablecoins, with leverage available to amplify exposure.
This distinction matters for Monero in particular. XMR has been delisted from several major centralized exchanges over the years due to regulatory concerns around its privacy features, making it harder to trade in traditional spot markets. Perpetual futures on platforms like Hyperliquid offer an alternative route for traders who want exposure without navigating the shrinking list of venues that still support direct XMR trading.
A pattern of whale interest
This isn’t the first time a large trader has taken a sizable XMR position on Hyperliquid. Earlier in 2026, a similar whale trade surfaced involving a $2.27 million USDC deposit used to open a 2x leveraged long on Monero. The current trade is significantly larger in both collateral and leverage.
The take-profit range of $475 to $516 would represent a roughly 19% to 29% move from the entry zone. At 4x leverage, a 25% adverse move would wipe out the collateral entirely without intervention.
With spot market access becoming increasingly restricted, decentralized perpetual exchanges are absorbing a growing share of XMR volume. That means XMR’s price discovery is happening less on order books where actual coins change hands and more on synthetic markets where stablecoins serve as the medium of exchange. Hyperliquid, which operates without traditional KYC requirements for most users, is a natural landing spot for that flow.