Directional bets, market makers and hedges

Say a $30M BTC short appears and looks like a bet against the market. It may not be one. Market makers hold inventory, arbitrage desks hold one leg of a trade elsewhere, and hedgers offset exposure they have somewhere else. WhaleRadar labels wallets by how they trade, so these do not count as bets.

The labels

• Directional: positions that behave like a view on price. That includes active traders whose book is mostly on one side at high leverage, however often they trade.
• Market maker: frequent two-sided trading, low leverage, inventory that flips.
• Arbitrage: positions that mirror funding or price gaps between venues.
• Hedger: positions that offset holdings elsewhere.
• Unclassified: not enough evidence. Many wallets stay here, and we say so.

directionalmarket makerarbitrage or hedgeunclassified

By default the radar shows directional positions only. The filter adds every wallet.

What a label won’t tell you

A label is an estimate from behaviour, not a fact about the owner, and it names nobody.