A wallet linked to asset manager Monetalis has rotated a significant position out of Uniswap's UNI token and into HYPE, the native token of the Hyperliquid ecosystem. On-chain trackers show the wallet sold 3.72 million UNI, worth roughly $13 million, through market maker Cumberland, then used the proceeds to buy 171,543 HYPE worth about $9.56 million.
The move came shortly after the same wallet had deposited that same 3.72 million UNI into Binance, Coinbase, Bybit and OKX through Cumberland over the prior 24 hours — the deposit stage of what turned out to be a full exit from the position rather than a simple rebalancing between exchanges.
A Contrarian Move Against the Broader Trend
The timing stands out because it runs against the grain of what most large UNI holders have been doing lately. UNI whales have recorded their fastest pace of token withdrawals from Binance in five years this month, moving assets into private custody wallets rather than selling — typically read as a sign of accumulation and long-term conviction. UNI itself climbed from around $3.50 in mid-July to a 90-day peak above $4.70 on August 1, making Monetalis's decision to sell into strength and rotate into a different ecosystem entirely a notable outlier against that backdrop.
Related: LAB Token Sinks 21% as Early Investors Rush to Claim Presale Tokens
Why HYPE, and Why Now
On-chain data from Arkham's explorer for the wallet confirms both legs of the trade, giving a transparent record of the fund's reasoning even without an official statement. Rotating from a governance-token blue chip like UNI into HYPE suggests Monetalis may be positioning for perpetuals-exchange activity over decentralized-exchange governance tokens in the near term, though the fund has not disclosed its rationale publicly. It's the latest reminder that large, well-tracked wallets keep making outsized directional bets across the altcoin market, not unlike the leveraged long and multi-year stake a separate whale recently placed on ASTER.
