In a pivotal development that has got the crypto community buzzing, a major crypto whale has made a bold move, transferring $10.98 million USDC to take a leveraged position on Plasma (XPL). With a 3x long position initiated on Hyperliquid, the investor shows high confidence in the coin. Now, concern mounts as the whale’s position slips into the red, casting a shadow over the token’s future.
Will the Whale’s XPL Bet Pay Off?
According to a recent Lookonchain X post, a prominent crypto whale has made a significant transfer of $10.98 million USDC to a new wallet to take a leveraged XPL position of Hyperliquid. Despite the whale’s firm belief in XPL, he experienced significant losses as the token’s price plummeted soon.
Reportedly, the whale’s leveraged position on XPL has not yielded expected results. The wallet is now carrying a substantial unrealized loss. The whale holds a perpetual futures position worth 16.17 million Plasma tokens, purchased at a rate of $0. 57394 per XPL. While the token price dipped to around $0.54185, following the whale move, it resulted in unexpected losses of around $518,965, with additional funding costs exceeding $9,200.
Notably, the liquidation price is at $0.15925, significantly lower than the current market price. Despite the substantial loss and risk of liquidation, the whale has chosen not to close or adjust the position, indicating a strong optimism about the token’s potential rebound.
The whale’s XPL strategy remains highly risky considering XPL’s current volatility. The risk of liquidation remains high if the XPL price continues to fall. The position could be forcibly closed if the price reaches $0.15925.
XPL Trades on Multiple Pre-Listing Markets
The Plasma token is currently traded on multiple pre-listing platforms, including Hyperliquid. Binance’s pre-market platform has opened order books while Hyperliquid has listed an XPL-USD “hyperps” contract. This contract allowed traders like the abovementioned whale to take leveraged long or short positions of up to 3x before the token’s official spot debut on a centralized exchange (CEX).
Notably, Hyperliquid’s hyperps contract uses a unique funding mechanism, setting rates based on a moving average of its own mark price rather than relying on external oracles. According to the platform, this approach minimizes the potential risks, such as market manipulation. The firm stated,
As a reminder, hyperps do not rely on any external data for the oracle price. Hyperps trade like perpetual contracts that users are familiar with, but do not require an external spot or index oracle price. Instead, the funding rate is determined relative to a moving average of the hyperp mark price. This makes the hyperp price more stable and less susceptible to manipulation, unlike usual pre-launch futures.
Current Market Performance
XPL is the native cryptocurrency of the Plasma blockchain, a Layer 1 network. The ecosystem focuses on stablecoin payments, enabling fast, secure, and borderless digital transactions 10% of the Plasma token is reserved for the public sale, which took place in July 2025. While non-US users were able to access their tokens immediately, US participants are restricted for 12 months.
Currently, the Plasma coin is valued at $0.5039, down 4.5% in a day. Over the past two days, the token has seen a massive surge of 206% despite today’s dip. However, the trading volume has plummeted by 6.6% to $366k, underscoring the traders’ diminishing confidence in the token. This may be fueled by the XPL whale’s unrealized loss.
