Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Wenser ( @wenser 2010 )
No one expected that in just two weeks, James Wynn, the "legendary trader" and crypto whale who once opened a $1 billion position, had fallen to the point where he could only open a few hundred dollars of ant positions after losing everything. Previously, he had published a long confession, describing how he went from "making a crazy $100 million" to losing everything, using himself as a negative example to reveal to the market the horror of the word "greed".
In this article, Odaily Planet Daily will combine James Wynn’s recent operations and his own speeches to dig deep into his life and affairs, and explore the mystery behind "whether James Wynn is the white glove of the Hyperliquid platform."
Regarding James, I recommend reading the article "Who is James Wynn: A trading genius from a small town, a crazy whale who gambled 1 billion."
Being too greedy and calculating cost James his life on the chain
In the early morning of June 6, James Wynn's long position was liquidated again, with a loss of 155.38 bitcoins, equivalent to about $16.14 million at the time. From the on-chain data, it can be seen that the liquidation occurred during a period when the price of the BTC-USDT contract fell sharply, and the liquidation price was about $103,981. This round of forced liquidation may be related to the sharp short-term market fluctuations.
Perhaps this liquidation finally became the "last straw that broke the camel's back". That morning, James Wynn published a long confession, sharing his history of fame and current situation for the first time in public.
I started trading perpetual contracts in March this year . I had never traded seriously before, and at most I traded Meme coins (I was previously famous for discovering PEPE when it was worth 600,000 and making 8-digit profits). I once rolled over 3 million US dollars to 100 million in just one month, and then lost it all in one week on HyperLiquid.
I was just playing around at the time, but the on-chain data was public, and hundreds of thousands of people were watching my account soar and plummet, so I just let myself go.
Then things gradually got out of control.
I understand that this is essentially gambling. I want to recoup my losses, but I’m also afraid of being laughed at for “not being able to keep 100 million,” so I get deeper and deeper into it.
The numbers jumping on the screen turned into a virtual game, and greed completely prevailed.
After reading it, I felt very sad. He had previously said many times that he would bid farewell to the contract market, but then he broke his promise and returned to the contract gambling table. As the market rebounded after breaking through the new high, and as Trump's inconsistent and changing policies and speeches fluctuated, James Wynn, like the crypto traders in the crypto market, became a fish to be slaughtered on the "cryptocurrency stage".
Sure enough, this "sudden awakening" did not last long. On the same day, James posted again that in the next few days, he would search for some small assets in his old wallet to see if he could find any usable assets. He could not return empty-handed. His words were full of desire to make a comeback.
The giant whale returns and transforms into an ant warehouse
On June 7, James Wynn liquidated all the funds in the on-chain address and transferred the remaining assets totaling US$1.91 million to three CEXs, including US$1.5 million to Kucoin, US$335,000 to MEXC, and US$75,000 to Gate.
Just when many people thought that he was serious about "retiring from the underworld" this time, his subsequent actions still exposed his unwillingness, making it hard not to sigh: "It is difficult to change one's nature."
On June 8, James Wynn used $468.62 as principal and once again opened a 40x leveraged long position in Bitcoin. The opening price was $105,537.5 and the liquidation price was $104,190. The nominal value of the position was only $18,737.66 . He said that he had staked his entire fortune.
In the novel "Flowering Flowers", the experienced uncle once said to Mr. Bao: "Do you know the Empire State Building in New York? It takes an hour to run from the bottom to the roof; but it only takes 8.8 seconds to jump from the roof. This is the stock market. If you want to make money from stocks, you must first learn to lose."
Uncle's advice
Compared to the stock market, the crypto market is even more cruel. If someone asks: "How long does it take to go from a crypto whale with 8-digit profits to a penniless trader?"
Perhaps James Wynn can tell him the answer - from opening a billion-dollar BTC long order to "betting his entire fortune" on Ant Financial, it took exactly one month from May 8 to June 8.
On the afternoon of June 8, according to Onchain Lens, James Wynn had closed 40 times of his long Bitcoin positions, with a loss of about $70.71. Subsequently, although the amount of the long position was small, his losses were further "expanded" - according to Lookonchain monitoring , his loss amount increased to $113.55.
I believe that many people, including me, find it difficult to have such a contrasting experience: a week ago, you were a giant whale that was stirring up the crypto world, with positions worth tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. You even boasted: "$100 million is not a lot of money at all, you can't even buy a super yacht"; and just one week later, after searching countless old wallets, plus the bonus from your own referral rebate, you only got a few hundred dollars to open an order.
The consequences of greed are so tragic, but the excitement of gambling goes far beyond that.
After James reached the end of his road, the questions that were once rampant around him, such as "Is James Wynn the white glove of Hyperliquid?", "Is James Wynn laundering money through Hyperliquid?", "Is James Wynn a god created by the Hyperliquid platform, and there is actually no such person?", may have been answered.
James Wynn and Hyperliquid: It's just a casino and gamblers relationship, nothing more
James Wynn's identity mystery
Previously, Wintermute founder wishful_cynic became the target of criticism because James Wynn named him and called for donations to fight against "conspiracy market makers". Later, he posted , "Overall, I think 'wynn' is just a well-executed HL (Hyperliquid) marketing campaign, well done. He is excellent. His tweets are also great." @JamesWynnReal , he also mentioned: "In fact, James Wynn mentions Hyperliquid once in three Twitter posts on average, and constantly emphasizes decentralization, anti-corruption, anti-manipulation, and vaguely mentions the unconfirmed 'banned account' scandal of other centralized exchanges. From a communication perspective, James Wynn has achieved the greatest success in the crypto market this year."
But soon, James Wynn's remarks shattered this "conspiracy theory".
James clarified: He contacted HyperLiquid twice to seek cooperation but was rejected. He hopes that CZ's dark pool will defeat HP
James Wynn later wrote : " I reached out to HyperLiquid twice, hoping to reach some kind of cooperation agreement for the attention I brought to them. Although they expressed their gratitude, they do not reach such agreements with anyone. This makes sense. After all, their platform is decentralized and does not operate like traditional exchanges. I made $34,000 through referral rebates on their platform. Considering the number of registrations and trading volume I brought, this amount is very low. Their referral mechanism is terrible, and other platforms are much better." From the words, it really doesn't sound like a "shill" for the Hyperliquid platform. Although the platform benefited from market conditions and set a new high in trading volume, the market value of the HYPE token once surpassed the popular SUI and jumped to the 11th place in the cryptocurrency rankings.
In addition, James flattered CZ unabashedly, saying: “ In my opinion, HyperLiquid will be over when CZ launches a dark pool perpetual contract DEX. CZ has the funds, resources, and team to create unprecedented products. Just look at what he has done on Binance. I hope this will prompt HyperLiquid to make improvements, otherwise it will soon be surpassed by stronger competitors.” For details about the dark pool mentioned by CZ, please see the article “An article analyzing the breakthrough point of the contract track in CZ’s eyes-dark pool” .
It is worth mentioning that wishful_cynic , the founder of Wintermute, has a somewhat ironic view on dark pools. He believes : “Ironically, we learned from the example of FTX+Alameda that internal market maker black boxes are bad, and on-chain DEX is the future. (And now, many people believe that) the most successful DEX is running on…internal market maker black boxes.”
Another focus: Is Hyperliquid a money laundering platform? No official conclusion yet
At the same time, as the founder of Wintermute mentioned, "whether Hyperliquid provides hedging or cross-trading convenience for money laundering" has also become the focus of many people's attention.
Mirror Tang, founder of Web3 security company Salus, previously wrote that since March this year, Chinese law enforcement agencies have cracked three cases of cryptocurrency money laundering using Hyperliquid. The criminal method mainly uses Hyperliquid's high-leverage liquidation mechanism to create liquidation losses on the platform while building reverse positions on centralized exchanges to make profits, thereby completing the flushing of illegal funds. He emphasized that this strategy is highly similar to the trading path of Hyperliquid user James Wynn.
As of now, there is no official conclusion on the incident, and Odaily Planet Daily will continue to track subsequent developments.
Conclusion: One thought can lead to heaven or hell. Remember to sell your profits and avoid high-frequency trading.
Looking back at James Wynn's ups and downs in this month, from being ignored to calling for the market value of the meme coin moonpig to exceed 100 million, to making a profit from large long orders, to chasing the rise and selling the fall, and ending up with nothing, it can really be regarded as a "crypto drama". As for the future, it is extremely difficult for him to make a comeback at present.
Between James's own thoughts of heaven and hell, Bitcoin first broke through a new high, and then fell to around 100,000 US dollars in recent days.
Perhaps James Wynn is using his own personal experience to tell us an irrefutable truth in the crypto market: remember to disinvest when you make a profit, and avoid high-frequency trading.
