As the $KAITO ($KAITO) price plummeted more than 27% during the past 7 days, a crypto trader on the Hyperliquid decentralized exchange (DEX) lost $1.98 million in 8 days.

On August 10, trader 0x2be3…8082 closed a $KAITO long trade with a net loss of 1,978,855. In addition to fees paid of about $4,083, this trader lost a total of $1,982,938 in about 192 hours.

0x2be3…8082’s completed trades on Hyperliquid. Source: Hyperbot

Essentially, this trader opened a long position for 6,065,626 $KAITO amid bullish exhaustion earlier last week. As the token traded at about $0.6693 earlier on Monday, this crypto derivatives trader exited this long bet.

At press time, this crypto user had a balance of $2,498,827 in $USDC ($USDC), without any perpetual position.

Crypto traders retreat from KAIKO token amid sell-off

Over the past 24 hours, KAIKO’s derivatives trading volume plunged by 40.76% to $336.92 million at the time of publication, according to metrics from CoinGlass. During the same period, the token’s Open Interest (OI) – the total unsettled futures in the derivatives market – fell by 12.49% to $93.01.

Amid the recent KAIKO price sell-off, its OI-Weighted Funding Rate, a fee set to maintain balance between the perpetual contract price and the underlying asset price, dropped into the most negative territory so far in 2026. Notably, a negative funding rate signals that traders are more bearish, as they are willing to pay the fee to long traders to maintain their positions.

$KAITO’s year-to-date Funding Rate. Source: CoinGlass

As more crypto traders retreated from $KAITO’s derivative market, and remaining liquidity turned extremely bearish, the token dropped 27.93%, trading at roughly $0.68028 at the time of publication.

$KAITO’s 7-day chart. Source: Finbold

As such, the token has faced an intense bearish outlook fueled by a long squeeze, a situation in which falling prices force traders holding long positions to sell, thus accelerating the price decline.

Featured image via Shutterstock.