F-0017 · first recorded 2026-08-22 · updated 2026-08-24
In a uniform sample of discovered BTC-trading wallets, ten wallets held 57% of sampled leveraged exposure and the median position was $1,308
PRELIMINARY
| Observation | of 8,000 wallets drawn uniformly at random from 51,765 discovered, 2,249 held a BTC position totalling $222.9M. The top 1 wallet holds 14.0%, the top 10 hold 56.6%, the top 100 hold 87.6%. Median position $1,308 against a mean of $99,108 — a mean 76 times the median |
|---|---|
| Sample | WIDE-1 first scan, 8,000 wallets, Hyperliquid BTC, 2026-08-22 |
| Method | uniform random sample without replacement, seed 20260822 recorded before drawing, from every distinct wallet seen in the BTC trade recording; positions read from the venue's own clearinghouse state |
| What is not established | one scan. Concentration through time is the question worth asking and this is a single point on it. The draw is uniform over wallets that TRADED BTC during the recording window, which is not the same as uniform over all Hyperliquid accounts |
| Who else publishes this | every provider reports aggregate open interest. None surveyed reports concentration over a disclosed wallet-sampling frame |
| Evidence | market/wide.py, ~/genesis-evidence/liqmap/snapshots-wide.jsonl |
The published map is built on a universe of 5,395 wallets frozen on 2026-08-19. Those wallets entered it by appearing in a trade recording, which orders wallets by how often they trade — so the universe is selected for activity, and every per-wallet statistic taken from it inherits that selection. WIDE-1 removes activity-frequency weighting inside the discovered-wallet frame. It does not remove the frame’s selection for wallets observed trading BTC during the recording window.
The first scan of it says two things, and the second is the interesting one.
What a uniform sample of the discovered-wallet frame looks like
| uniform sample (WIDE-1) | activity-selected (LIQ-2) | |
|---|---|---|
| wallets scanned | 8,000 | 5,395 |
| holding a BTC position | 2,249 | 1,312 |
| total notional | $222.9M | $607.6M |
| median position | $1,308 | $1,630 |
| mean position | $99,108 | $463,109 |
| top 1 wallet | 14.0% | 15.9% |
| top 10 wallets | 56.6% | 64.9% |
| top 100 wallets | 87.6% | 96.4% |
A mean 76 times the median. Within this sampled frame, the median open BTC position was about thirteen hundred dollars, and ten sampled accounts carried more than half of sampled exposure. This does not establish either figure for every leveraged BTC trader on the venue.
The methodological half, which is F-0011 again
The uniform sample scanned 48% more wallets and saw 10.5% of open interest, against the activity-ranked universe’s 36.8%. That is not necessarily a worse scan. Within this frame it shows that exposure is concentrated enough that a uniform draw often misses the largest accounts.
Both figures are correct and they answer different questions. Coverage as published — scanned notional over exchange open interest — is a statement about notional and stays valid however the wallets were chosen. But any statement about wallets — what share can defend themselves, how they behave, how they fail — inherits the selection, and until now every such statement this project has made came from the activity-selected universe.
That is the third time selection has bitten: F-0011 on the fast tier, F-0013 on disappearance, and now the deep universe itself.
Why this one might matter where the others did not
F-0016 searched nine public market-state variables over six years and found nothing beyond the trailing tape, and noted that all nine were public. Concentration is not public. No provider surveyed publishes it. Computing a representative market-wide figure would require a population frame stronger than the trade-discovered frame currently available here.
It also has the property every dead hypothesis lacked: it varies by construction. Whether it
varies with anything is unknown and is Q2 in research/QUEUE.md. One scan cannot answer it. The
recorder now runs every six hours, which is the only way to find out.
Nothing here is a claim about price. It is a description of who holds the leverage.