Lighter whales: the largest traders right now
We track 91 directional whales — addresses with $1M+ in open perpetual positions on Lighter. Together they hold $233.39M in longs and $234.23M in shorts, so 50% of whale money is long. The largest whale right now is #202090 with $50.88M in open positions. The most profitable open book belongs to #776 (+$6.46M unrealized), and the highest effective leverage — 168.2x — to #758541.
How we find whales
Every position on Lighter lives on-chain and is public. Once a day we check every account from the Lighter leaderboard, and in real time we read the stream of all trades on the exchange: any order of $50K+ puts its address on our radar within seconds. An address becomes a whale at $1M in open positions and stays one until its positions fall below $500K. When a whale trades, its positions are re-read within seconds; otherwise every 1 minutes.
Directional whales and other types
Not every large position is a bet on price. We split whales into types: directional traders, baskets (same-side positions across many coins, often a portfolio hedge), hedged books, market makers and HFT bots, and vaults such as HLP. By default the list shows directional whales — the ones whose positions reflect a view on the market. Switch to “All whales” to see everyone with $1M+ in positions.
What the columns mean
- Balance — the whale’s perpetuals account value.
- Positions — the total size of open positions, longs plus shorts; the list is ranked by it.
- Long, Short, Long / short — how the whale’s positions split between the two sides.
- Leverage — effective leverage: all positions divided by the balance. The leverage set in the account is often much higher and says little about the real risk.
- Open PnL — unrealized profit or loss on open positions right now.
- PnL 30d and PnL all time — the whole account’s result from the Lighter leaderboard, updated daily; sort by them to see the best traders right now.
How to use the list
- Sort by leverage to find the most aggressive whales — the ones closest to liquidation.
- Sort by open PnL to see who is winning and who is trapped in the current market.
- Open any whale to see every position with entry and liquidation prices, the history of position changes, closed trades and win rate.
- See which coins whales agree on in Follow the flow, and how their positions shift in real time on the overview.
We only see Lighter: positions on other exchanges are invisible, and one trader can use several addresses. Data comes from the public Lighter API and updates in real time. Nothing here is investment advice — see the methodology for how every number is calculated.