{"id":278750,"date":"2026-02-07T09:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/278750\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T09:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T09:32:14","slug":"ethers-crash-leaves-686-million-gaping-hole-in-trading-firms-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/278750\/","title":{"rendered":"Ether&#8217;s crash leaves $686 million gaping hole in trading firm&#8217;s book"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An ether <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/price\/ethereum\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ETH$2,022.06<\/a> bull was caught leaning hard into the upside this week as the cryptocurrency tanked, turning the whale bet into a multi-million dollar horror story. <\/p>\n<p>That bull is Trend Research, a trading firm headed by Liquid Capital founder Jack Yi.  The firm spent recent months building a bullish (long) bet worth <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/arkham\/status\/2019865632905601468\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">$2 billion<\/a> on ether by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/lookonchain\/status\/2005531039536722054\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">borrowing stablecoins<\/a> from DeFi giant Aave, which were reportedly collateralized by ether.<\/p>\n<p>The position blew up this week, leaving the firm with a $686 million loss, according to Arkham. <\/p>\n<p>The blow up underscores the crypto market&#8217;s unchanged reality:  Volatility can still make or break traders in a single week. It also shows how traders keep chasing risky leveraged loop plays \u2013 borrowing stablecoins against ETH collateral \u2013 despite these bets exploding spectacularly every downtrend. <\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Trend Research's multi-million dollar loss. (Arkham)\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3023\" height=\"1162\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-md\" style=\"color:transparent;background-size:cover;background-position:50% 50%;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-image:url(&quot;data:image\/png;base64,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&quot;)\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1770456734_54_image.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Trend Research&#8217;s multi-million dollar loss. (Arkham) <\/p>\n<p>How it went down<\/p>\n<p>The team was convinced of ether&#8217;s long-term potential and expected a quick rebound from its October drop below $4,000. <\/p>\n<p>But that never materialized \u2013 ether kept sliding, endangering their &#8220;looped ether&#8221; long position. As prices fell, the stablecoin collateral backing the leveraged bet shrank, while the fixed debt loomed large in classic leveraged fashion. <\/p>\n<p>The final blow came this month as ether started falling rapidly with bitcoin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/price\/bitcoin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">BTC$68,521.13<\/a> and on Feb. 4 prices tanked to $1,750, the weakest level since April 2025. Trend Research responded by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/bubblemaps\/status\/2019728933009436785\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">liquidating over 300,000 ether<\/a>, according to data source Bubble Maps. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Trend Research started sending large amounts of ETH to Binance to repay debt on AAVE In total, this cluster moved 332k ETH worth $700M to Binance over 5 days,&#8221; Bubble Maps said on X. The firm now holds just 1.463 ETH. <\/p>\n<p>Jack Yi described these sales as a risk-control measure.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As multi-heads in this round, we remain optimistic about the performance of the new bull market: ETH reaching over $10,000, BTC exceeding $200,000 USD. We&#8217;re just making some adjustments to control risk, with no change in our expectations for the future mega bull market,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Jackyi_ld\/status\/2018680411057185272\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Yi said in a post on X<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>He added that now is the best time to buy tokens, calling volatility as the biggest feature of the crypto circle. &#8220;Historically, countless bulls have been shaken off by this volatility, but often what follows is a doubled rebound,&#8221; he noted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ether ETH$2,022.06 bull was caught leaning hard into the upside this week as the cryptocurrency tanked, turning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[114,3637,85,46],"class_list":["post-278750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ether","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}