“Top Traders Are Long, So I'm Long” — The Worst Way to Use the Satoshi Index

We have been publishing the Satoshi Index daily report twice a day for a few weeks now. The reaction we hear most is a single question: "So, buy or sell?" The answer is not in the report, not on the page, and it is not going to be. This column is here to explain why, because it can sound strange that the people who built a page showing top traders' positions are the ones saying "don't copy them."

At a glance

• The worst way to use the Satoshi Index (Satoshi Note's public board combining the positions of the top 100 accounts by 7-day return on Hyperliquid, Lighter, dYdX and Pacifica) is "top traders are long, so I'm long." Not answering "buy or sell?" is the rule behind the page.
• Three reasons: the top 100 is not one person but 100 accounts holding opposite sides; direction alone is half a position without leverage, entry and liquidation price; and the 7-day window includes lucky weeks and changes face every 30 minutes.
• The intended use is a mirror: put your position next to the top accounts' and ask why they differ. No forecast, no recommendation.

The top 100 is not one person

The Satoshi Index pulls the top 100 accounts by 7-day return from Hyperliquid, Lighter, dYdX and Pacifica. That short window is deliberate. The point is to show accounts that are doing well right now, not people who have proven themselves over years. Which also means some accounts simply had a lucky week, and since the ranking and per-asset totals refresh every 30 to 60 minutes, today's 100 are not tomorrow's 100.

So a figure like "BTC 62% long" does not mean "top traders expect bitcoin to rise." What it means, precisely, is "if you add up the bitcoin positions of these 100 accounts right now, the money leans 62% long." That is not 100 opinions. It is where 100 accounts' money happens to sit. Those are two different things.

Direction alone is half a position

A position has more than a direction. It has a size, an entry price, leverage, and an unrealized P&L. Two "longs" can be entirely different trades.

• A short from an account that also holds a lot of spot may be a hedge, not a bet on a decline.
• A long entered far below today's price is not the same decision as a long opened today. That account is already in profit, and its tolerance for drawdown is different from yours.
• At 2x and at 20x, the same direction can survive ten times different price moves.

This is why the asset page does not stop at a long/short ratio and shows, per account, the entry price, leverage and unrealized P&L. If you take the ratio alone and follow it, you are discarding every condition behind the trade and keeping only the arrow.

By the time you see it, they have already moved

A position on the page is a position already taken. If you saw an account flip to long, that account is already in at a better price than you can get. When the daily report says "flipped," it is a record backed by a fill, not a signal about where price goes next. Read records as signals and you will always be standing one step behind.

So what is it for? Use it as a mirror

If the page is not an answer key, why build it? Because it works as a mirror. Three uses.

1. Whether you stand with the crowd or against it. If you are long and 80% of the top accounts are short, that does not mean you are wrong. It means it is a good moment to write your reasons down one more time. If they are all on your side, that is not reassurance; it is the fact that everyone is standing at the same door. Either way, it lets you step back from your own position.

2. Whether the exchanges disagree with each other. This is why each exchange can be viewed separately. When one exchange's top accounts lean long and another's lean short, you see with your own eyes that "what top traders think" was never a single thing. The disagreement itself is the information.

3. How your watchlist accounts change. Star an account and the Watchlist screen marks when its positions change. The point is not "they changed, so I should too." It is that you are building a record of how an account you chose to follow moves, and at what prices. After a few weeks that record shows what kind of trader it is, and that is when it becomes a real reference.

Why we leave the answer blank

To be clear about why we do not answer "buy or sell": what we see is the position of a public account, not the thinking of the person behind it. Borrow the direction without the thinking and you will not know why you were right when you are right, or why you were wrong when you are wrong. Nothing improves the next time. What the Satoshi Index tries to do is not to decide for you, but to put where the money sits right now next to your own judgment, and stop there.

FAQ

If most top traders are long, can I just follow them?

The Satoshi Index does not answer that question. The top 100 is the sum of 100 accounts holding opposite sides, each with its own leverage, entry, liquidation price and funding situation. Borrowing the direction without the thinking leaves you with half a position.

Then how is the Satoshi Index meant to be used?

As a mirror. On a coin page, place the top accounts' direction, leverage and liquidation prices beside your own position and ask why they differ. It is a comparison, not an answer key.

How often does the ranking change?

The ranking is by 7-day return, and the per-coin totals refresh every 30 minutes (dYdX every 3 hours). Lucky weeks are included, so today's 100 and next week's 100 can look quite different.

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This is a column: the Satoshi Note team's view, not a recommendation to buy, sell or take a position in any asset. Where the Satoshi Index numbers come from is explained in What is the Satoshi Index?.