AguilaTrades Blows $3.8 Million in Three Failed ETH Short Attempts—What Went Wrong With Their Stop-Loss Strategy?

The whale trader AguilaTrades just suffered a brutal loss, and it’s raising serious questions about even experienced traders’ risk management. On August 12, the latest data shows ETH trading around $2.93K, but this level became a nightmare for AguilaTrades’ short position.

The Pattern of Repeated Failure

Here’s what went down: AguilaTrades entered a short position on ETH earlier today, betting on further downside. But instead of a smooth trade, they got caught in a painful loop. Three separate times over the past 72 hours, they attempted to call the top on ETH. Each time, the price pushed past their short entry by just $50—not massive, but enough to trigger their stop-loss exit.

The result? A cumulative loss of $3.8 million across these three consecutive liquidations. Twenty minutes before executing the final stop-loss, AguilaTrades closed most of their remaining ETH shorts and began scaling out the last portion using TWAP orders to minimize slippage.

Why Keep Retrying the Same Setup?

What’s particularly interesting about this sequence is the apparent pattern. After the first stop-loss hit, most traders would recalibrate their thesis or step back. But AguilaTrades came back twice more with similar short positioning, suggesting they remained convinced of their bearish outlook despite the mounting evidence that their timing was off.

This raises the classic question: was this aggressive risk-taking, or a failure to adapt when the trade setup wasn’t working? The $50 buffer before stop-loss indicates tight risk parameters, which is disciplined on one hand but potentially too rigid when catching falling knives.

The Broader Lesson

For the trading community watching this unfold, the takeaway cuts both ways. On one hand, AguilaTrades demonstrated strict stop-loss discipline—they didn’t hold through larger losses. On the other hand, the repetition of the same losing trade three times in quick succession highlights how even experienced players can get locked into a conviction that the market refuses to validate.

At current ETH price levels around $2.93K, the question now is whether this forced liquidation will shift liquidity dynamics or if these exits were simply the cost of playing directional bets without perfect timing.