In brief
- A whale trading on Hyperliquid that made millions shorting BTC and ETH last week is now shorting Bitcoin again.
- The trader added $40 million USDC to Hyperliquid on Monday, using it to short Bitcoin with 10x leverage.
- The open position is currently yielding around $700,000 in unrealized profits.
A whale that earned close to $200 million by shorting Bitcoin and Ethereum prior to Trump’s tariff announcement on Friday—which helped lead to a record $19 billion in crypto liquidations—has taken another stand against the top crypto asset.
And while the wallet owner has been accused of being a “Trump insider,” the person purportedly behind it insists that there’s no connection to the First Family.
The Ethereum address ending in “7283ae” deposited $40 million in USDC to perpetuals trading platform and decentralized exchange Hyperliquid on Monday morning, according to data from Hyperliquid block explorer HypurrScan.
Shortly thereafter, the account began building a 10x short position in Bitcoin valued around $340 million. In other words, the account holder is betting on the price of Bitcoin to go down, and using 10x leverage to increase the size of their bet without needing to commit the full $340 million principal.
Based on 7283ae’s entry price of $116,009, the account has already amassed more than $700,000 in unrealized profits. The entire position will be liquidated, wiping out the principal and gains, if Bitcoin reaches a new all-time high of $130,460.
Crypto researchers have pointed to the uncanny timing in the account’s recent actions on Hyperunit—a platform that allows native tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum to be deposited and ultimately traded on Hyperliquid—as reasons to suspect having inside knowledge of President Trump’s market-sinking comments.
Blockchain data firm Arkham Intelligence has labeled the wallet holder a “Trump insider whale,” and other crypto commentators have flinged similar accusations at the trader, though there’s no direct evidence to prove prior knowledge of Trump’s actions.
Data from Hypurrscan and Arkham shows that the same wallet deposited $80 million in USDC to Hyperliquid via Hyperunit on Friday. It then opened about 3,700 BTC—or around $450 million—in Bitcoin shorts according to data from Hypurrscan.
One day later, the wallet withdrew $150 million from Hyperliquid and later transferred it to a new wallet, which now houses around $386 million in USDC.
A report from blockchain researcher Conor Grogan tied the account to a Bitcoin whale that had swapped millions of BTC for ETH earlier this year. Others have suggested that the account belongs to former BitForex CEO Garrett Jin, and he confirmed that he’s connected to it—but said it’s his “clients’ fund,” not his own personal account.
Pseudonymous on-chain sleuth “Eyeonchains” first flagged the connection between Jin and the unknown Bitcoin whale in a post on X over the weekend. The post was amplified by Binance founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who reposted the allegation with the caption: “Not sure of validity. Hope someone can cross check.”
Jin then wrote in reply this morning: “Hi CZ, thanks for sharing my personal and private information. To clarify, I have no connection with the Trump family or Donald Trump Jr.—this isn’t insider trading.”
Bitcoin has risen modestly in the last 24 hours to $115,796, but still remains down 8% on the week following Friday’s market crash. Ethereum is up nearly 4% in the last 24 hours, and has fallen around 9% this week to a price of $4,284.
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