Abraxas Capital buys $39M in Ethereum while holding $291M in shorts on Hyperliquid

Abraxas Capital, a London-based digital asset firm managing over $4 billion, just scooped up 16,554 ETH worth roughly $39 million. At the same time, the firm is sitting on 120,178 ETH in short positions on Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetual futures exchange.

The two-sided trade

The firm’s short exposure on the platform has frequently exceeded $700 to $900 million in gross positions across ETH, Bitcoin, and Solana. Of that, Ethereum consistently accounts for the largest single-asset chunk, with ETH shorts ranging between $120 million and $194 million depending on the day.

Earlier in August, Abraxas withdrew 73,872 ETH from Binance over a four-day stretch, a haul worth approximately $173 million. The latest 16,554 ETH purchase adds to that accumulation pattern.

Abraxas is collecting ETH at spot prices while using short positions to earn funding rates and hedge against downside risk. When the market pays you to hold shorts (because long traders are paying a premium), you can accumulate the underlying asset while your short positions generate yield.

Profits in the hundreds of millions

On August 29, Abraxas posted a $21 million profit in a single 24-hour window, generated from a portfolio containing $472 million in short positions. That kind of daily return, roughly 4.4% on the short book alone, illustrates why the firm keeps scaling into this approach.

The total short exposure has at times ballooned to between $598 million and $783 million across all assets on Hyperliquid. On-chain analysts have been tracking Abraxas’s wallets closely, and the firm frequently ranks among the platform’s top traders by volume.

Why Hyperliquid matters here

Hyperliquid operates on its own Layer-1 blockchain and has carved out a niche as the go-to venue for on-chain perpetual futures trading. Its native token, HYPE, has attracted attention partly because institutional players like Abraxas are generating enormous volume on the platform.

What this means for the ETH market

The dual approach of accumulating spot ETH while maintaining enormous short positions suggests Abraxas is positioning for multiple scenarios. If ETH drops, the shorts profit. If ETH rises, the spot holdings appreciate. And regardless of direction, funding rates from perpetual futures provide a steady income stream.

A sudden ETH rally would generate unrealized losses on the shorts that need to be managed carefully, even if the spot book offsets some of that pain. Abraxas has faced unrealized losses during volatile stretches, though cumulative profits have remained positive.

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