Bitcoin OG Places $234M BTC Short Bet After Profiting Big from Trump’s China Tariffs

Bitcoin’s BTC$108,000.61 price has made a strong recovery since the October 10 crash, but not everyone is convinced.

One notable skeptic is a Bitcoin OG who earned $200 million by shorting BTC ahead of the October 10 sell-off, which was reportedly sparked by President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff announcement on China.

On Tuesday, the whale placed a new bearish bet, swiftly increasing it to a $234 million short position on BTC via the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid, according to data from Arkham. The liquidation price for this short is $123,000, the price point at which the position will face a margin call and be forcibly closed by the exchange.

The new short position emerged as BTC’s price rally from the Oct. 10 low of about $104,000 stalled near $114,000 on Tuesday. Since then, the cryptocurrency has pulled back to $108,500, according to CoinDesk data.

What happened on Oct. 10?

Prices plunged from around $122,000 to $104,000 on October 10, with most losses occurring late in the day after President Trump announced an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods, on top of the existing 30% tariffs.

The announcement followed China’s move to tighten controls on rare earth exports, pushing risk assets lower. The BTC sell-off was intensified by technical issues at Binance, which triggered volatility in key tokens like Ethena’s synthetic dollar USDe.

Interestingly, the BTC whale opened a massive short position about 30 minutes before President Trump’s tariff announcement. The ensuing price crash generated significant profits for the trader and sparked allegations of insider trading.