💥Risk Warning💥

I stared at the PIPPIN asset all night last night.

To be honest: as long as the principal is thick enough, theoretically you can make money by shorting - your opponent's position is the funding fee. I'm also struggling with whether to go short.

I can't say that the on-chain trading volume is all fake. This thing has been on the popularity list for quite a long time, and everyone understands that the crypto space has never lacked new retail investors. The heat in the primary market is also quite strange. If the trading volume is real, then it’s likely that the market makers are controlling the rhythm to protect their positions—eating the funding fees is one aspect, but the main goal is to find someone to take over the spot. During the upward movement, there are definitely retail investors buying spot, and there are also people selling above, and most of these chips have likely been taken away by the market makers.

Let’s do the math: assuming the dealer has a position of 15 million, with a funding rate of 0.004 per hour, the hourly profit would be approximately 60,000 U. This amount of money simply cannot support the expenses of maintaining the primary market.

So this sideways position is quite puzzling now. I can think of two paths:

**Path One**: Consolidating to absorb shorts, preparing for the next round of rally.

**Path Two**: Sideways movement allows spot trading to take action + Increase in short positions.

I personally prefer the second option. From the perspective of retail investors: if you bought spot at 1000U and the price is stagnant, you probably wouldn't be in a hurry to sell, right? As more retail investors adopt this mindset, the chips in the hands of the whales will gradually be distributed, and they can simply crash the market.

If we take the second route, what the dealer needs to do is to stabilize the market - keep the price steady. When there is overselling, buy back the chips to support the price, and then continuously place sell orders. Now the on-chain data looks like this approach.

Change perspective: If I were the dealer, wouldn't it be equivalent to getting people on board if I consolidate at this position? What if the market cap is pushed to 500 million later, and those retail investors who bought the spot at a 200 million order book start dumping? This selling pressure is the risk that must be cleared in advance.

During the process of a price surge, it is inevitable for retail investors to buy spot assets. Therefore, in general, market makers handle this situation by making a quick rally—trying to prevent retail investors from acquiring too many bottom shares. Distributing shares at this position is actually quite risky.