Altcoin long/short ratios: when wallets and dollars disagree

A long/short ratio sounds like one number, but there are two ways to count it. You can count how many wallets are long and short, or how many dollars are. On 28 October 2026 we froze both for five large altcoin markets on Hyperliquid: XRP, DOGE, SUI, LINK and AVAX. In four of the five, the two counts pointed in different directions. This post shows the numbers and what the difference means.

The concept itself, with BTC and the limits of both ratios, is explained in Open interest and long/short. Here we only look at what the data showed on that day.

The numbers

Each row comes from the tracked Hyperliquid positions in that coin at the snapshot. "USD" adds up the notional size of long and short positions; "wallets" counts the accounts on each side. A ratio above one means more longs than shorts, below one means more shorts.

Four coins, the same pattern

XRP. 406 wallets were long and 269 short, a wallet ratio of 1.51. In dollars the shorts were slightly larger: $105M long against $109M short, a ratio of 0.95.

LINK. The same shape: a wallet ratio of 1.52 (240 long, 158 short), but a dollar ratio of 0.95.

SUI. 244 long wallets against 180 short, a wallet ratio of 1.36, while the dollar ratio was 0.90: $12.4M long, $13.9M short.

DOGE. More wallets long (1.36), and the dollars almost exactly balanced at 1.01: $36.9M long and $36.7M short.

In each of these four markets, more accounts were long, but the short side carried as much size or more. That happens when the long side is made of many smaller positions and the short side of fewer, larger ones.

The exception: AVAX

AVAX was the only one of the five where both counts leaned the same way. 161 wallets were long and 169 short, a wallet ratio of 0.95, and in dollars the ratio was 0.82: $6.4M long against $7.9M short. It was also the smallest of the five markets by tracked size.

How large these markets are

The five markets differ a lot in size, and that changes how much one account can move a ratio. Adding the long and short side together, tracked XRP positions came to $105M plus $109M, while AVAX had $6.4M plus $7.9M. In a market as small as AVAX, one position of a few million dollars is a large share of the book. In XRP it takes a much larger account to shift the dollar ratio by the same amount.

The wider book

For context, the whole tracked book across all coins at the same time:

Across 43,019 positions from 9,549 wallets, worth $12.9B, longs made up 48% of the dollar size. The five altcoins above are small next to that total, which is why a single large account can move their dollar ratio.

Why the two ratios disagree

A wallet ratio treats every account the same. A trader with a few hundred dollars counts as much as one with tens of millions. A dollar ratio weights each position by its size, so a handful of large accounts can outweigh hundreds of small ones.

Neither is the "right" one. They answer different questions:

• Wallets: how many participants are on each side. Useful to see where the crowd leans.
• Dollars: how much money is on each side. Useful to see where the size is, and what a forced close on one side would add up to.

When both lean the same way, the picture is simple. When they disagree, as in four of these five markets, the positioning is split between many small accounts on one side and fewer large accounts on the other. That describes the book; it does not say where the price goes. A crowded side can stay crowded for a long time, and large accounts are often hedged elsewhere.

Reading this on our pages

• The long/short page shows the dollar ratio of the tracked Hyperliquid positions for each coin, live, next to the account ratios other venues publish; a click on a coin opens its history.
• Each coin's positioning tab, for example XRP positioning, puts the ratio next to open interest and funding.
• The whales tab of a coin, for example DOGE whales, lists the large positions that drive the dollar ratio.
• The glossary entry long/short ratio defines both variants in one sentence each.

Limits of the data

• Tracked wallets only. The ratios come from the Hyperliquid wallets we follow. They are not exchange-wide figures and do not include other venues.
• One moment. All values are frozen at the snapshot time and will differ from the live pages.
• Positions, not intentions. A short can be a hedge for a long held somewhere else, and the other way round. The data shows positions, not why they were opened.