A crypto whale, an anti-CZ, made 100M both shorting ASTER, ETH, XRP, and other currencies, challenging the buy and market hype by CZ Binance.
ASTER Buy Sparks Market Frenzy-and a Contrarian Whale Windfall CZ. Binance founder and director Changpeng Zhao (CZ) revealed that he bought more than 2 million tokens in ASTER.
His news of buying thrilled the crypto world and his price of ASTER went up by $1.26.
This rally was however not long-lived. The value of ASTER plunged by more than 20 percent and now it trades at about $0.84 with trading volumes reduced to half its normal level of $1.3 billion, spooking investors.
Although CZ publicly expressed his optimism in making a buy and selling, one crypto whale, who was known as the anti-CZ whale, took the opposite side of the hype and made a fortune.
This trader now has $21 million of unrealized gains on ASTER shorts alone on Hyperliquid, a decentralized exchange. The overall gain on numerous short positions on cryptocurrencies is close to 100 million dollars.
Anti-CZ Whale’s Bold Strategy: Betting Against Market Sentiment
This whale added short positions in ASTER and increased short positions in Ethereum (ETH) rather than acting on the buy impulse of CZ.
All these roles continue to be very lucrative during a decline in the cryptocurrency market. As the general market is losing the 3.75% cap and the fear sentiment stands at 27, the liquidations are over 1.3 trillion liquidation-wise, with the longs representing the 1.2 billion.
The contrarian behavior of this trader escaped FOMO and took advantage of the price corrections induced by macro forces and incidents such as the $120 million Balancer exploit.
Cryptocurrency influencers saw this “anti-CZ bet as a gutsy one, which indicated the ability of the trader to read the market outside of the hype.
CZ’s Own Words: “I Buy and Hold, Not a Trader”
CZ came to X (previously Twitter) to announce his personal ASTER buying, explaining that he is not trading but long-term investing with his own money.
The revelation he made generated the first buying spurt, and the resulting downturn in the market played to the advantage of the shorts of the anti-CZ whale.
This situation highlights the nature of crypto markets in which hype and fundamentals may part ways sharply.
The two opposing actions by CZ and the whale underscore two different investment strategies in the unstable crypto market.