Key Takeaways:
A prominent crypto whale on the Hyperliquid derivatives exchange, linked by on-chain researchers to former BitForex CEO Garrett Jin, has a net loss of $128 million after catastrophic trades on Ethereum erased earlier monumental gains. The data, published May 25, comes from analytics firm Bubblemaps.
"If the trader had simply held $BTC and avoided the $ETH leverage spiral, his net profit would stand north of $70 million," Bubblemaps stated in a breakdown shared on the social media platform X. Instead, the wallet cluster is now "down $128M overall" after a brutal series of liquidations.
The analysis shows a dramatic reversal of fortune for a trader who reportedly made between $190 million and $200 million by shorting Bitcoin and Ethereum ahead of the "10/10 crash" on October 10, 2025. Those gains were more than wiped out by a series of subsequent high-leverage ETH longs, with one March 2025 trade on Hyperliquid losing about $4.3 million in a single liquidation, according to Binance Square reports. Panoptic's market intelligence suggests aggregate realized losses on ETH eventually surpassed $200 million.
The saga highlights the extreme risks of leveraged trading and how quickly even legendary profits can evaporate. For the broader market, it shows the outsized impact a single whale's activity can have on sentiment and liquidity on decentralized exchanges, where large positions are publicly visible and can trigger cascading liquidations.
The trader first gained notoriety for building a massive short position, including a $735 million Bitcoin short on Hyperliquid, just before a sharp market downturn in October 2025. While Garrett Jin has denied owning the wallet, he acknowledged a connection to the individual responsible. The success of that trade, however, appears to have led to overconfidence.
Starting in early 2026, the whale began opening a series of oversized long positions on Ethereum with leverage as high as 50x. One notable liquidation in March involved a $200 million notional position that was wiped out, causing a roughly $4 million loss to Hyperliquid's own insurance fund due to slippage, according to market reports. This pattern of failed attempts to time a market bottom on ETH is the primary driver behind the nine-figure net loss.
Despite the staggering losses, the wallet cluster associated with the trader remains active. Bubblemaps reports the whale recently deposited several million dollars in new collateral to Hyperliquid. The address has since acquired approximately $10 million worth of HYPE, the platform's native token, and opened a new $38 million short position on the privacy-focused cryptocurrency Zcash (ZEC). This activity aligns with other whale-tracking reports following a trader dubbed "Evaded," who has been making similar high-conviction bets on ZEC, HYPE, and major cryptocurrencies on the platform.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.
