Guides and reference · Hyperliquid open interest and long/short: what the whales hold of it
Guide 18 of 211 min read
Hyperliquid open interest and long/short: what the whales hold of it
What open interest means on Hyperliquid, how much of it the largest wallets hold, and how their long share differs from the crowd’s.
Good for: judging how much a market’s whales matter, or reading a long/short ratio you saw elsewhere.
Say open interest in a market doubles in a week. Open interest is the money in open positions in that market. It grows when new positions open and shrinks when they close, whichever way the price moves.
The whales’ part
Each market page shows open interest over time and, under it, the part the tracked whales hold. When a few wallets hold a large part, their moves weigh more in that market.
Hyperliquid among all exchanges
On 14 Jun 2026 Hyperliquid held 8.3% of the open interest in perpetual futures across all exchanges, centralized and on-chain, Hyperliquid included. It was a record at the time, Coinpaprika reported.
Centralized exchanges publish their open interest as a total. On Hyperliquid every position behind it is public, so the whales’ part can be counted. More in Hyperliquid vs centralized exchanges.
Long and short, whales and the crowd
For whales WhaleRadar counts money: the share of whale money that is long. For the crowd on crypto it shows the long share of retail accounts, which counts accounts, not money. The two can point opposite ways, and the Whale Tide puts them on one scale from 0 to 100.
What open interest won’t tell you
It won’t say which side opened the new money. That is what the whales’ long share and their moves add.