On Thursday, October 9, a whale opened a Hyperliquid account, funded with tens of millions of dollars, with the aim of shorting Bitcoin and Ethereum. Shortly thereafter, the markets collapsed. In 35 hours, this short sale generated between $190 million and $200 million in profits.
A whale makes $200 million in 24 hours on Hyperliquid
A good day’s work. On the Hyperliquid perpetual contract trading platform, a new account opened a short position on Bitcoin and Ethereum with no less than $80 million.
Shortly thereafter, the cryptocurrency market crashed. Within minutes, the price of Bitcoin lost 10% of its value, or $12,851, falling from $122,000 to $109,000.
This precipitous fall caused a chain reaction among altcoins, led by Ethereum. Vitalik Buterin’s cryptocurrency lost 21% in the same period, and it was far from the worst. Some altcoins, such as Chainlink’s LINK, lost up to 60% of their value before recovering slightly.
The carnage is not limited to the cryptocurrency market. The S&P 500, the index of the 500 largest US companies, lost 3% in an hour and a half yesterday before the markets closed. It was a bloodbath for the US index, which has a market capitalization of tens of trillions of dollars.
The massacre was particularly profitable for this mysterious whale on Hyperliquid. However, there are many indications that this was not a stroke of luck, but rather insider trading.
$200 million in 24 hours: insider trading the likely culprit
First of all, this is a new account, created solely for the purpose of this trade, no doubt with the aim of covering its tracks.
Then there is the size of the trade. Opening a short position with such a large amount is a huge risk. Only a financial institution could finance such a position. However, this type of company would not take on a trade with such a high risk-to-reward ratio. The whale’s account was credited with $80 million to open a short position with $420 million in leverage on Bitcoin. At the same time, it sent $30 million to short Ethereum.
At the time of writing, the whale still has an open short position of $17 million on Bitcoin. This position is currently worth $92 million.
Finally, the timing. Donald Trump’s announcement clearly plunged the markets into chaos. The president’s statement was inevitably known to a small group of people before it was revealed to the public. With this information, such a trade is no longer a risk, but a guaranteed gain.
This theory is gaining traction on social media and among analysts. Since the data is public on the blockchain, investigators and analysts can follow the trail. It is thanks to Hyperliquid’s blockchain order book that we have all the information about the mysterious whale.
As one user on X points out: “This trade is just the tip of the iceberg, visible on Hyperliquid. I can’t even imagine what this whale has been doing on CEXs.”
Garrett Jin has had one position open on Polymarket and has been buying for the last few weeks:
Yes shares on `Will Trump Pardon Changpeng Zhao in 2025?`
Now Trump is thinking about pardoning him.
Jin is connected to the Billion Dollar Bitcoin Whale selling on HyperUnit pic.twitter.com/UIId1byDkI
— Emmett Gallic (@emmettgallic) October 10, 2025
Another X account managed to link the whale to a person, Garrett Jin. The latter is the former founder of the BitForex exchange platform, which no longer exists.
By analyzing his various addresses, analyst Emmett Gallic was able to trace Garrett Jin’s activity on the Polymarket prediction betting platform.
The former BitForex CEO’s activity on Polymarket boils down to a single prediction: betting on Donald Trump granting Changpeng Zhao a presidential pardon. After buying 84,000 “yes” votes. Since then, Donald Trump has strongly hinted that this was a possibility. So, is Garrett Jin the mysterious trader with White House secrets?
