Recipe 13 of 33
What does "whale" or "3x smart" mean? Cohort bounds
The segments catalogue lists every cohort on every ladder with its bounds; a whale is an account worth $1m to $2.5m, and 3x smart is the top 1% of wallets by lifetime realized PnL.
GET /v1/hl-cohorts/segments answers it in one call: the cohort catalogue, one row per cohort on each of four
ladders, with its bounds, slug, rank and what it measures (basis). size bands a wallet's account value in USD,
pnl is a percentile rank of its lifetime realized PnL, pnl_abs bands that PnL in dollars, and trade_size
bands a single position's notional. The endpoint page is Cohort catalogue,
and Cohorts and axes explains the ladders.
Quick answer
It takes no parameters.
# every cohort on every ladder, with its bounds
curl -H "X-API-Key: $VIKE_API_KEY" \
"https://data.vike.io/v1/hl-cohorts/segments"Example response
Captured from the live API on 2026-10-24 at 17:13 UTC, trimmed to 4 of 44 rows, one per ladder.
Bounds include the lower edge and exclude the upper one, and a null bound is open. whale is an
account worth $1m to $2.5m; the four whale tiers together start at $1m, and 4x whale is $10m and
up. 3x smart is the top 1% (percentile_max 0.01) of wallets with at least 10 closed trades.
[
{
"axis": "size",
"cohort": "whale",
"slug": "whale",
"rank": 4,
"basis": "account_value_usd",
"applies_to": "wallet",
"groupable": true,
"min_usd": 1000000.0,
"max_usd": 2500000.0,
"percentile_min": null,
"percentile_max": null,
"min_closed_trades": null
},
{
"axis": "pnl",
"cohort": "3x smart",
"slug": "3x_smart",
"rank": 1,
"basis": "cumulative_realized_pnl_percentile",
"applies_to": "wallet",
"groupable": true,
"min_usd": null,
"max_usd": null,
"percentile_min": 0.0,
"percentile_max": 0.01,
"min_closed_trades": 10
},
{
"axis": "pnl_abs",
"cohort": "$1m+",
"slug": "1m_plus",
"rank": 1,
"basis": "cumulative_realized_pnl_usd",
"applies_to": "wallet",
"groupable": true,
"min_usd": 1000000.0,
"max_usd": null,
"percentile_min": null,
"percentile_max": null,
"min_closed_trades": null
},
{
"axis": "trade_size",
"cohort": ">$2.5m",
"slug": "above_2_5m",
"rank": 1,
"basis": "position_size_usd",
"applies_to": "position",
"groupable": false,
"min_usd": 2500000.0,
"max_usd": null,
"percentile_min": null,
"percentile_max": null,
"min_closed_trades": null
}
]Variations
Just the spellings. /cohorts returns the label lists per ladder: the exact strings every cohort parameter accepts.
# label lists per ladder, in ladder order
curl -H "X-API-Key: $VIKE_API_KEY" \
"https://data.vike.io/v1/hl-cohorts/cohorts"One ladder with its bounds. Filter the catalogue to the size ladder.
# account-value tiers, largest first
curl -s -H "X-API-Key: $VIKE_API_KEY" \
"https://data.vike.io/v1/hl-cohorts/segments" \
| jq '[.[] | select(.axis == "size") | {cohort, slug, min_usd, max_usd}]'Which ladders can group a summary. groupable is false for trade_size, which buckets positions, not wallets.
# ladders accepted as axis= by /heatmap and /segments/{cohort}/summary
curl -s -H "X-API-Key: $VIKE_API_KEY" \
"https://data.vike.io/v1/hl-cohorts/segments" \
| jq '[.[] | select(.groupable) | .axis] | unique'Before you rely on it
Similar names, different definitions
pnl is a percentile, not dollars: 3x smart is always the top 1%, whatever that is worth, while
pnl_abs uses dollar bands such as $1m+. Wallets under 10 closed trades are unknown on pnl.
Bucket names elsewhere may look alike and mean something else, so read the bounds here rather than
mapping by name. Labels with spaces go in a URL path as their slug, such as 3x_smart.
Ask your agent
Connected to the Vike MCP server (https://vike.io/mcp) in Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, ask it in plain words.
The hl_segments tool answers (view segments), at 1 credit a call.
What account size makes a Hyperliquid wallet a whale, and what is 3x smart?