#数字资产市场观察 a long order of 56 million USD in ETH, why are institutions willing to incur unrealized losses of 460,000?

On December 2, on-chain data showed that the address pension-usdt.eth established a long order position in ETH worth $56 million at an average price of $2825. The numbers on paper don’t look good — there were unrealized losses of $460,000 that day. However, looking at the longer term, this address made a profit of $900,000 from short positions closed on the same day, with cumulative earnings approaching $10 million for the month.

What is hidden behind this string of numbers? The core difference between institutional trading and retail investors in cryptocurrency may lie in the understanding of the term "loss".

The logic chain of most retail investors is quite straightforward: open a position → unrealized losses → panic → stop loss → miss out. However, the holding data of this whale address shows that the average holding period is only 8 hours, the leverage multiple is extremely low, and the unrealized losses of a single position account for less than 1% of the total funds. In other words, that 460,000 USD is more like a "market sentiment detector"—using controllable trial and error costs to verify the true direction of short-term fluctuations.

The truly deadly factor is not the numerical losses on the books, but the position management that lacks margin for error. When retail investors go all in on one direction with 5x leverage, a 5% reverse fluctuation in the market can trigger a forced liquidation; whereas institutions use low leverage to configure long and short combinations. Even if one-sided positions suffer losses, the hedging structure can still lock in the overall risk exposure.

What is the essence of this strategy? Treat each position opening as "costly market research", using short-term losses to exchange for the accuracy of long-term judgments. Earning tens of millions a month is not based on single bets, but on the few high-certainty opportunities filtered out after dozens of trials and errors.

So what should retail investors learn? It's not about following the specific points of operation of the whales, but rather understanding the risk control framework behind it: always leave room in your positions, avoid leverage if possible, and losses within expectations are costs rather than disasters.

In the crypto market, those who lose money are newcomers, those who dare to lose small amounts are veterans, and those who can turn losses into a part of their strategy are the winners.