“Around the Binance hack, the long-side share went 7% → 68% → 16%: what changed among the day’s top performers”
Columns · · Satoshi Note Editorial
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In the early hours of November 1, we grouped the accounts that had performed well over the past day. Trades that profit when the price rises made up 68% of their total position value.
At the same moment, among the accounts that had performed well over the past month, that share was only about 8%. The other 92% or so were trades that profit when the price falls.
Both were top-performer groups on the same day, yet the direction of the trades they held differed sharply depending on the period used to judge performance.
Trades that profit when the price rises are commonly called “longs,” and trades that profit when it falls are “shorts.” Here we describe them as the “long side” and the “short side.”
At first, positions leaned heavily to the short side
Binance announced that the hack occurred at around 5:05 a.m. KST on October 30.
On the afternoon before the incident, long trades made up 7.1% of position value among the 1-day top performers. Setting total position size at 100, that is about 7 on the long side and about 93 on the short side.
In the first snapshot after the incident the long-side share was 18.6%, and it rose to 20.6% that afternoon. It was higher than the day before, but about 80% of the total value was still on the short side.
The table below collects only the share held by long trades at each moment, comparing top performers selected by performance over one day, one week and one month.
| Snapshot (KST) | 1-day top performers | 1-week top performers | 1-month top performers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 29, 15:31 | 7.1% | 8.5% | 8.7% |
| Oct 30, 05:54 | 18.6% | 17.6% | 11.5% |
| Oct 30, 15:28 | 20.6% | 15.9% | 12.4% |
| Oct 31, 06:48 | 11.5% | 13.6% | 7.6% |
| Oct 31, 13:58 | 9.8% | 14.8% | 7.3% |
| Nov 1, 05:23 | 68.4% | 16.2% | 7.9% |
| Nov 1, 15:51 | 64.4% | 16.2% | 8.7% |
| Nov 2, 06:47 | 15.6% | 15.5% | 8.7% |
Shares are by position value. Above 50% means long-side value was larger. All times are KST.
Among the 1-day top performers, long-side value was larger on November 1. It was more than half of the total in both the early-morning and afternoon snapshots.
The next morning it dropped back to 15.6%. The long-side share did not keep growing after the hack; it stood out in the November 1 snapshots and then shrank again.
The share rose to 68%, but total value actually fell
The long-side share jumped most between the afternoon of October 31 and the early hours of November 1, from about 10% to about 68%.
A share is a portion of the total. It rises when the long side grows, but it can also rise when the opposite side shrinks. This time, both happened together.
| Snapshot (KST) | Long-side value | Short-side value | Total value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 31, 13:58 | $283M | $2.596B | $2.879B |
| Nov 1, 05:23 | $706M | $326M | $1.032B |
Long-side value rose. But the value counted on the short side fell by far more. As a result, total value in the snapshot shrank about 64%, and the long side’s portion within it grew.
The “68% long” figure contains both the effect of the long side growing and the effect of the opposite side shrinking.
The accounts being counted also matter here. Which accounts make the 1-day top performers can change with the ranking.
For example, if an account with a large short-side position drops out of the ranking, its value is left out of the snapshot even if the account kept its trades. Conversely, if an account with a large long-side position enters, the long-side share can rise.
So this change can reflect not only real trading by existing accounts but also a change in which accounts were in the top group. Saying that the same people changed their trade direction all at once would need account-level checks.
By 1-week and 1-month performance, the short side stayed larger
When the 1-day group’s long-side share was 68.4%, the 1-week group was at 16.2% and the 1-month group at 7.9%.
Put simply, among accounts that did well over the last day, long-side value was larger, but among accounts that did well over the last week or month, short-side value was far larger.
The difference starts with the period used to judge performance. Doing well yesterday does not mean ranking near the top over the last month. Which accounts are counted, and what positions they hold, depend on the period used to pick them.
The long-side share also moved up and down in the 1-week and 1-month groups. Even so, short-side value was larger in all eight snapshots. The change seen among the 1-day top performers did not appear in the other two groups.
The timing of change also differed by asset
This time we looked not at value but at the number of accounts holding long trades in each asset.
HYPE changed the most right after the incident. Among the 1-day top performers, accounts holding HYPE long rose from 42 before the incident to 114 right after. By the next morning it had fallen back to 42.
In the afternoon snapshot on November 1, accounts holding long positions were 134 in BTC and 115 in ETH. In both, that was more than twice the number of accounts holding short trades.
In HYPE, long-side accounts surged right after the incident and then fell back, while in BTC and ETH long-side accounts were the majority on the afternoon of November 1. Even within the same top group, when and by how much things changed differed by asset.
In this record, the big change appeared among the 1-day top performers. Long-side value was larger on November 1, then short-side value was larger again the next day. Among the 1-week and 1-month top performers, the short side stayed larger throughout the observation period.
In particular, in the stretch where the long-side share rose to 68%, the total counted value shrank sharply. Looking at the values on both sides behind the share, along with the share itself, gives a clearer picture of the top group at the time.
Current positions are on the Satoshi Index.
Source: eight Satoshi Index snapshots between October 29 and November 2, 2026. The universe is the top-performing accounts by period on Hyperliquid, Lighter, dYdX and Pacifica. Amounts are the positions held at each moment, totaled in US dollars.