On-chain perpetual futures for Nvidia pointed to another weak open on November 9, with traders leaning short while official Nasdaq markets were still closed. The move came after a scandal involving founder Jensen Huang and Alice Huang, who is now under investigation for spying on behalf of China. That story hit an already fragile AI and semiconductor trade.
Pre-market pressure builds
NVDA traded near $186.64 in pre-market hours, down from a range above $200. The drop reflects two pressures at once: the immediate fallout from the Huang investigation and the broader deflation in AI and semiconductor stocks. On HIP-3, NVDA was aggressively shorted and saw more than a day of concentrated selling volume. Perpetual futures on HIP-3 use Pyth oracle pricing, and volumes jumped from about $3.1 million per hour to $115 million per hour after the investigation news. That gave traders a way to price NVDA over the weekend, when official markets were closed.
Whales lean short
On Hyperliquid, the xyz:NVDA perpetual futures against USDC pushed the price into the $178 range, with local lows at $175. The ticker saw its most active selling volume in a month, then bounced as buying returned. Open interest stood around $128 million as of November 9. That is small compared with some equity or commodity contracts, but NVDA was still among the top 10 most traded contracts, just behind SanDisk in open interest. Ten of the 19 whales on Hyperliquid were short NVDA, while long positions carried unrealized losses and were generally smaller. One whale shorted NVDA with 10X leverage and held more than $128,000 in unrealized gains. The same trader shorted BTC with 30X leverage and had over $200,000 in unrealized gains. A bigger position worth over $9.3 million showed $1.23 million in unrealized gains.
Wider market fallout
The NVDA move also spilled into crypto sentiment. As NVDA fell, BTC touched a local low of $73,600, adding to a negative tone that led to another round of liquidations. Swimmer Finance said it would continue listing NVDA despite the volatility. Traders are now watching several dates: a November 11 Congress hearing, Q3 earnings on November 17, and a closed-door Congress hearing on November 18. Polymarket bets give a 24% probability that Huang is ousted as CEO by the end of 2026. I think the next few sessions will depend less on the scandal itself and more on whether selling in AI and semiconductor stocks keeps accelerating.
