A trader on the Aster decentralized exchange turned an initial $24,000 into roughly $275,000 in less than a month. The address, identified as 0x3376…8A05, was flagged by Lookonchain on August 26. The return works out to about 11 times the original amount.
The positions involved Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chainlink. That sounds like a safe mix, but the trade was anything but safe. It was opened with 100x exposure, meaning a small drop in prices could have wiped out everything. According to the on-chain data, the trader has already withdrawn around $91,000. That leaves about $184,000 in the wallet, though that number moves with the market.
A risky bet in a turning market
The timing was everything. Digital assets had been falling for months. Bitcoin went from $87,412 on January 1 to $64,269 by August 16. Then, in about a week, it jumped nearly 22% to $78,401. Ethereum behaved similarly, climbing from $1,916.47 to $2,460.08 within the same period, a gain of roughly 28%. Chainlink also moved upward, from $10.55 to $11.36.
Still, the broader picture is not as bright. Even after that rally, Bitcoin is down 10.31% year-to-date. Ethereum sits 17.09% lower. Chainlink is off 6.56%. So the recent surge, while strong, has only made up part of the ground lost earlier in the year.
What the rally means for the market
The latest price action also improved the total cryptocurrency market cap. It started 2026 at around $2.97 trillion, then fell to $2.19 trillion just before the upswing. By press time, the loss from the start of the year had narrowed to about $350 billion.
But the rally stalled on August 22. Whether this is the beginning of a new bull market or just a temporary bounce remains unclear. For this trader, though, the move already paid off in a big way.
