Bitcoin Market Makers Are Profiting From the Rally Without Betting on Where BTC Goes Next

Bitcoin’s comeback has reopened an old trade that does not require calling the next top.

Some of the market’s larger trading firms are buying spot crypto while shorting an equivalent amount of perpetual futures. The two positions largely cancel each other’s price exposure.

What remains is the yield created when bullish traders pay to keep leveraged long positions open.

That structure is known as a cash-and-carry, or basis, trade. It is less exciting than a giant directional bet, but that is the point.

According to CoinDesk’s reporting on current market-maker positions, Abraxas Capital, Fasanara Capital and Wintermute collectively held short positions of 3,425 BTC and 138,569 ETH on Hyperliquid. At the prices cited in the report, those positions were worth roughly $265 million and $338 million.

The positions appeared after Bitcoin climbed from roughly $62,000 to above $77,000 in a matter of days. That move also erased about $3 billion from leveraged short sellers who had entered the rally with outright bearish exposure.

The market makers’ positioning looked different because it had a visible spot leg. CoinDesk reported that Abraxas withdrew 73,872 ETH, worth about $173 million at the time, from Binance over four days while maintaining derivatives shorts.

Owning the asset and shorting a matching amount of futures separates that structure from a naked bearish bet. The desk gives up most of the gain if the asset rises, but it is also buffered against most of the loss if the asset falls.

The shorts do not necessarily mean those firms expect Bitcoin or Ether to fall. Abraxas, for example, was also withdrawing large amounts of spot Ether from centralized exchanges.

Pairing that spot asset with a matching short can leave the desk close to market-neutral.

The return comes from funding. Perpetual futures do not expire, so exchanges use periodic payments to keep their prices near the underlying spot market.

When leveraged demand leans heavily long, long traders generally pay short traders.

Crypto protocol Aegis measured Bitcoin’s 30-day average perpetual funding rate at a 6.7% annualized pace on August 24, while the seven-day average had climbed to 8.7%, according to the same report. Those rates can change quickly, but they explain why a neutral short can be valuable during a powerful rally.

Public sentiment has clearly turned more bullish. Michael Saylor captured that shift in two words this weekend:

We’re ₿ack. pic.twitter.com/ciqOaCa908

— Michael Saylor (@saylor) August 30, 2026

That optimism is useful fuel for the basis trade. The more traders are willing to pay for leveraged upside, the more funding can accrue to the short side of a properly hedged position.

CryptoQuant also reported a sharp change in its Bitcoin market indicators, with its bull score jumping from 30 to 80 in one week:

Bitcoin just entered a new bull market.

Bull Score: 30 → 80 in a week, the fastest flip in a year.

$83K is the only thing left standing in the way. pic.twitter.com/7nD1bb14QM

— CryptoQuant.com (@cryptoquant_com) August 25, 2026

The rally itself also appears to have had real liquidity behind it. CoinDesk Research’s separate market-depth review found that average Bitcoin liquidity within 0.5% of the spot price stood near $9.6 million when the move began on August 18.

It remained around $8.7 million as Bitcoin reached $80,000 on August 25.

That matters because a rally through a thin order book can be pushed by a small number of orders. Stable depth suggests larger flows were being absorbed without the market turning hollow.

Cash-and-carry is not free money. Funding can collapse or reverse, the spot and futures legs can move out of alignment, and leverage, liquidation thresholds, custody, smart-contract risk and exchange failure all remain real concerns.

A desk can also lose money if it cannot rebalance both sides quickly.

Still, the trade reveals something important about this stage of the market. Retail attention naturally goes to whether Bitcoin can keep climbing.

Professional liquidity providers can profit from the demand for that bet without making the same bet themselves.

For market makers, the rally’s direction is only half the story. The widening gap between spot demand and leveraged futures demand may be the more dependable opportunity.

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