Whale Watch: Altcoin Accumulation and Leveraged Plays Dominate September

Aggressive leveraged trades and deliberate token accumulation have characterized recent whale activity in mid-September 2025. Hyperliquid received $5 million USDC on September 15th, thereby opening highly leveraged positions across Bitcoin (40x), Solana (20x), FARTCOIN (10x), PUMP (5x), and LAUNCoin (3x), indicating bullish confidence in the middle of market uncertainty. Moreover, whales demonstrated a contrarian approach by utilizing meme coin dips, then employing 10x positions in PEPE and WIF to enter during a retail panic, thereby emphasizing their speculative risk appetite.

Increased DeFi token activity depended mostly on institutional whales. Maker (MKR) recorded 39.62 million worth accumulated, matching the protocol's rebranding to SKY. Uniswap (UNI) had significant accumulation, with almost 39.62 million worth acquired, matching the protocol's. Driven by expectations of Federal Reserve rate decisions and Defi industry rotation, rebranding to SKY saw significant accumulation with almost 398 million added to whale positions for Uniswap (UNI). Reflecting their long-term bullish view on decentralized finance methods, whale UNI holdings increased from 7.77 billion to 8.08 billion tokens in only a week.

Cross-chain capital movement has gained pace as well, with Ethereum whales spreading their investments into emerging Layer-1 initiatives like Nexchain, which raised 10.25 million in the second week of September. A significant Bitcoin−to−altcoin rotation occurred in the second week of September, when a famous whale converted 4,000 BTC (10.25 million). Simultaneously speeding diversification into DeFi, meme currencies, and infrastructural projects, a significant Bitcoin−to−altcoin rotation, a renowned whale converted 4,000 BTC (435 million) to 96,859 ETH in just 12 hours. This exercise emphasizes how whales positioned themselves strategically in many industries during a time of increased market opportunities.