Monero Briefly Surges Past $400 as Hyperliquid Whale Opens $36 Million Leveraged Long Position

Monero ($XMR) experienced a 14% increase in Open Interest over the past 24 hours, with prices briefly surpassing the $400 psychological threshold on Sunday, August 9. After reaching a local high of $413.5, the privacy-focused altcoin retreated by 5.6% and was trading at approximately $390 at the time of reporting.

The token had previously fallen to a low of $300.6 on June 30, meaning it has since rebounded by 29.87%, even after factoring in the recent pullback.

Meanwhile, Bitcoin (BTC) encountered resistance at $65,300, corresponding to the 78.6% Fibonacci retracement level based on its 4-hour swing structure. The rejection from the $65,000–$67,000 supply zone contributed to broader market-wide losses.

On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain identified a Monero whale wallet on the decentralized exchange Hyperliquid that had established a significant long position. Hyperliquid is a decentralized perpetual futures exchange operating on its own Layer 1 blockchain, allowing traders to take leveraged positions without a centralized intermediary. The wallet opened a 4x leveraged long on $XMR valued at $36 million, with take-profit targets set between $475 and $516. Positions of this size on perp DEXs can amplify price moves in both directions, as forced liquidations may trigger cascading effects when price approaches liquidation thresholds.

Weekly Timeframe Structure

On the weekly timeframe, $XMR maintains a bullish swing structure. The token has been forming higher lows since 2024, with upward momentum accelerating toward the end of that year. The current weekly structure is anchored by the most recent impulse move from $230 to $800. Although the privacy token remained in a deep retracement at the time of writing, it had not breached this overarching bullish structure.

Monero is the largest privacy coin by market capitalization, using ring signatures and stealth addresses to obscure sender, receiver, and transaction amounts on its public ledger. This privacy-first design has made XMR a staple of the anonymity-focused cryptocurrency sector, though it has also led to delistings from several major exchanges under regulatory pressure, which historically impacts liquidity.

Both the On-Balance Volume (OBV) indicator and the Money Flow Index (MFI) on the weekly chart signaled a prolonged tug-of-war between bulls and bears throughout 2026, with neither side establishing clear dominance.

Technical Signals Favor Sellers on Daily Timeframe

Despite the bullish higher-timeframe bias, the latest rally toward $400 raised concerns. In a post on X, crypto intelligence platform Alphractal noted that a primary driver behind the upward move was overhead short liquidation levels rather than genuine buying demand.

If the move proves to be a liquidity sweep rather than a sustainable bullish breakout, it could pose risks for buyers attempting to trade the short-term momentum.

Toward the end of June, Monero underwent a bearish structural shift on the daily timeframe. The subsequent rally up to $400 represented a counter-trend pullback to the upside rather than a resumption of the uptrend.

While the OBV has been rising in recent weeks and the MFI indicated bullish momentum on shorter timeframes, the daily swing structure continued to favor sellers. Additionally, the weekly OBV remained weak, and the MFI signaled an absence of strong momentum.

These indicators suggest that another price decline toward $300 or slightly below cannot be ruled out. A decisive breakout above the $437 high, accompanied by sustained buying pressure, would be necessary to shift the daily structure back to bullish and confirm the next uptrend.

In summary, the daily timeframe swing structure indicated that Monero's rally to $400 was a retracement rather than a display of relative strength. Without sustained and substantial buying pressure, a bullish breakout above $437 could prove difficult to achieve.