Who is directing the liquidation of James Wynn?

Author: shu, BlockBeats

During the Dragon Boat Festival holiday just passed, the giant whale James Wynn vividly performed a vivid drama of "not treating money as money" in the currency circle, and he also broadcast live on X the price of Bitcoin from its long list clearance price, which was only 20 US dollars away from the liquidation of the position, which attracted the attention of the entire network.

Foreign version of Liangxi, "begging" to supplement the deposit

On May 30, James Wynn was liquidated for the first time due to a high-leverage BTC long position, when his $100 million position was forced to close, and Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) achieved a profit of approximately $530,000. Since then, he has opened new 40 times leverage long positions, and was partially or completely liquidated again on May 30 and 31 respectively, and the liquidation price remains in the range of US$102,000 to US$103,400.

According to Lookonchain data, its long positions in PEPE and BTC were partially liquidated, with a cumulative loss of up to US$9.36 million and a total loss of up to US$17.72 million. Subsequently, Wynn closed all positions and transferred out the last approximately USDC in the HyperLiquid account to completely clear it.

However, the gambler will not easily get off the card table. Just one day after the short position, he redeemed the 126,116 HYPEs (total value of approximately US$4.12 million) he had pledged, and sold them at an average price of US$32.7 to achieve a profit of US$1.05 million. The deal was seen as his "last hope", but immediately afterwards, he returned to the battlefield.

On June 2, James Wynn once again opened a 40-fold leveraged BTC long position, holding 944.93 BTC, opening price is US$105,890.3, and liquidation price is US$104,580, with very little risk space below. As the market fluctuated and downward, he continued to add margin on-chain, and the liquidation price was adjusted to US$104,360 and US$104,150, and was finally pushed to around US$103,610, only about US$20 room from the actual market price.

As leverage approaches the critical point of liquidation, Wynn initiated a fundraising request on social media, publicly saying: "If you want to fight against the market maker group and support me, please transfer USDC to the designated address." He promised that if the transaction is successful, return the crowdfunding funds by 1:1. This move quickly caused controversy, and even Liang Xi swears in James' comment section saying that this behavior is "infringement".

According to on-chain analyst Ember Monitor, he received more than $40,000 in just two hours, of which $30,000 was transferred to HyperLiquid for restocking, and the liquidation price was temporarily reduced to $103,610. He then added another USDC margin to push the liquidation price to US$103,637, avoiding liquidation for a time.

Calling CZ to arouse PerpDEX competition

The Bitcoin market is currently in a stage of high game, and the excessive leverage of contracts makes it a hotbed for liquidation hunting. Due to weak buying last week and sluggish liquidity, coupled with time factors such as summer weekends, it is easier for large funds to push and pull prices in such neutral environments.

Crypto analyst Willy Woo believes that although there are frequent buying walls on the surface, it may be the repeated manipulation of the fund parties

• such as James Wynn's liquidation price. As James continues to add margins, a small episode happened. When the price of Bitcoin was on the verge of James' long list clearing price, he took a screenshot and called CZ to say "How do you view this kind of market manipulation behavior", and his words were quite excited.

Immediately afterwards, James even directly asked CZ to send a private message to himself. CZ also joked that James no longer had 1BNB to use the contact tool and advertised the application within the ecosystem.

After the private message ended, CZ posted a meaningful long tweet saying, "In view of recent market events, I think now may be a good time to launch a dark pool perpetual contract DEX. The idea of ​​dark pool perp DEX - blocking order books, delaying display margin changes, and even hiding transaction addresses and contract capital injection paths, can be technically implemented through encryption solutions such as ZK.

He believes that the openness and transparency of the current DeFi market has become the weakness of highly leveraged traders, and the on-chain order book, liquidation prices and margin flows are fully visible, making any large position a target for being hunted. When CEX can still hide its account identity, the opponents faced by on-chain users may be market makers, robots, arbitragers and other order-following funds.

This is highly echoing James Wynn's encounter. His liquidated price has been tracked all the way, social media has been watched, and even the "1:1 crowdfunding" he initiated has been analyzed on the chain in real time due to the public address, becoming a public experiment in the eyes of the market and the media.

CZ is a high-profile discussion on dark pool perp DEX at this time, which is not a whim, but more like a deliberately released signal. As the James Wynn incident continues to ferment on the chain, the market attention and user activity of new generation perp DEXs such as HyperLiquid continue to increase, and such platforms have begun to truly touch the CEX cake.

In the past cycle, DeFi derivatives platforms have been regarded as test products with weak liquidity and rough experience. But this time, the perp DEX model represented by HyperLiquid is not only becoming more mature in user trading experience, asset stability, and even "gambling" design, but also relies on the clearing mechanism and high leverage strategy to create strong dramatic tension and community discussion on the chain.

As these decentralized platforms gradually face CEX's core business - high-frequency contract trading, the boundaries of the original waters began to blur, and both sides began to take each other seriously.

Hyperliquid advertising spokesperson?

The controversy about James Wynn is much more than just his crowdfunding margin, but also triggering widespread discussion among the community is the "sensation of script" he presents behind a series of extreme operations.

Just before James Wynn redeems HYPE and made a profit of $1.05 million and was about to open his position again, he posted a ritual tweet that he announced his temporary leave of the contract transaction. What's more intriguing is his high praise for Hyperliquid. "Thanks to Hyperliquid for your hospitality, your service is impeccable and the platform is also very outstanding."

This acknowledgement quickly aroused doubts, after all, this is the node after he suffered many liquidation and huge losses on the chain. More people in the community speculate that James seems to be more like the "plot character" arranged by Hyperliquid on the chain, using high-intensity leverage and high-frequency operation on social media to create unprecedented attention and discussion volume for the platform.

In fact, this doubt is not groundless. In the past few weeks, there have been rumors in the community that James Wynn may hedge in reverse on other exchanges while opening an extreme leverage position on Hyperliquid, creating influence through on-chain topics, indirectly boosting platform user activity, and attracting widespread attention to HYPE tokens and its ecosystem.

As James revealed that multiple exchange accounts were blocked and funds were restricted, the outside world began to re-examine the authenticity of this rumor, and he himself was fully in his subsequent speech, directly saying:

"I support decentralization and oppose corruption. I support Hyperliquid and oppose market making manipulation. You can't catch any of my handles. My wallet is clean and transactions are clean. I have never collected promotion fees or shipped out the market. I am just a meme coin gambler and HL high-end playlist that is spelled out on the chain."

This self-debate is intense and full of emotions, and it is more like taking the initiative to label yourself as a chain-up and clear stream - but in the eyes of the community, this high-profile expression of contrast is more like a carefully planned plot marketing.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes also posted on social media that "this may become one of the most successful trading platform marketing activities in the history of the cryptocurrency industry. In addition, this guy is likely to be hedging at another anonymous address, specifically to get Hyperliquid's next round of airdrops."

As of June 3, Bitcoin price fell, James Wynn's 40-fold long position turned into a floating loss again after a brief floating profit, and Hyperliquid continued to be the core of public opinion in this on-chain series.