Recently, I saw someone treat large on-chain transfers and exchange hot and cold wallets moving as "smart money" copying trades... Now I ask myself first: is this really building a position, or is it hedging/arbitrage/portfolio rebalancing? To put it simply, you can see the address, but you can't see the motive. Many whales are adding spot positions while simultaneously opening opposite perpetual positions; their net exposure hasn't actually changed. If you follow their trades, you're only following the "actions," but the risk hasn't been accounted for. My habit is to break it down first: does the source of funds look like subsidies, is the position increasing risk or reducing volatility, is there a deadline pressure; if you can't see clearly, just treat them as bystanders—missed opportunities are okay. As for you saying "can't we just infer from the flow"... don't rush.