Who’s still playing contracts in this market? —— No no no, the counterintuitive truth is: the number of active contract traders on Hyperliquid is about to hit the peak of the past six months, with a significant rise since January. TL;DR: Whale wipeouts + market volatility ≈ high-leverage degen paradise Using January 16 as the dividing line, we can break it down into the following phases: 1️⃣ 01.16: Peak coin prices in recent months, the starting point of the drop. Hyperliquid OI (Open Interest) hit its peak simultaneously, but the number of active contract traders was at a low. 2️⃣ 02.01: A $600M long position from an insider whale in 1011 got liquidated, OI dropped sharply, while the number of active contract traders started trending upward. 2️⃣ 02.08: Yilihua liquidated $1.354B worth of ETH in just 8 days, causing a massive wave of long positions to get liquidated. OI hit a short-term bottom, but the number of active contract traders kept climbing. At this stage, although platform OI is relatively low, there’s a noticeable increase in active retail traders. If you look at the "ratio of open contracts to perpetual assets," you’ll see this ratio has been steadily rising since 02.08. In plain terms —— more retail traders are playing, and they’re all loving high leverage. It’s either go broke or strike it rich, the most primal crypto scene, the wildest battlefield.