Key Takeaways
- Trader bowen1476, hasn’t posted a winning short since a 700 BTC trade in May 2026.
- Bitcoin’s 22% weekly rally, tied to Treasury bond buybacks, has squeezed short sellers since August 19.
- The new 40x short on 300 BTC needs bitcoin to fall back under its $77,100 entry to turn a profit.
An Embarrassing Losing Streak Deepens Further
The wallet (identified as bowen1476) opened its 15th short position against bitcoin and ether in five days on August 24, this time a 40x leveraged short on 300 BTC worth roughly $23.13 million. The trader has lost on all 14 previous attempts in that stretch, for a combined $4.56 million in losses.
The new short lands with bitcoin trading around $77,500, up 22% over the past seven days, meaning the position is fighting one of bitcoin’s strongest rallies since March 2023.
Moreover, it bears mentioning that this is not the wallet’s first appearance in the headlines. Bitcoin.com News reported in May that the same address, then riding a winning streak, closed a 700 BTC short worth $56.68 million at a $1.94 million loss, a single bad trade that erased $1.71 million in profits from its previous 11 winning shorts.
Subsequently, in April, the trader opened a 33x leveraged short on 200 BTC worth $14.15 million at an average entry of $70,745, its fifth short position that month alone. On August 19, the same wallet had a separate short liquidated as bitcoin’s rally accelerated, part of a $270 million wipeout of short positions.
Shorting Into a Treasury-Fueled Rally
The wallet’s losses have coincided with one of bitcoin’s sharpest rallies in years, triggered, in large part, by the news that the U.S. Treasury doubled its long-dated bond buyback operations from $2 billion to $4 billion per operation, a move Bernstein strategist Gautam Chhugani said was the strong trigger behind bitcoin’s breakout from a six-week trading range between $60,000 and $65,000.
The resulting short squeeze forced the liquidation of more than 172,000 short positions and wiped out roughly $3 billion in bearish bets within a single 24-hour window.
President Trump added to the momentum by publicly urging Congress to pass the Clarity Act, which would establish clearer federal rules for digital assets. Bitcoin has since touched a seven-day high of $79,500, within reach of the wallet’s newest short entry price near $77,100.
Whether the trader’s 15th attempt breaks the streak depends largely on whether bitcoin’s rally has further to run. Lookonchain data shows the wallet has not closed a winning short since its 700 BTC trade in May, and each new position has been opened at progressively higher prices as bitcoin has climbed.
