In crypto buying and selling, the promise of huge features usually comes with the chance of heavy losses. Over time, a number of high-profile crypto merchants have made headlines for his or her daring bets, solely to see their fortunes crumble when the market turned towards them.
From Bitcoin (BTC) to Ethereum (ETH), the crypto market has confirmed to be a double-edged sword. Hundreds of thousands will be made or misplaced in simply hours, and merchants are left to take care of the fallout from their high-risk strikes. Listed below are the tales of three crypto merchants who worn out hundreds of thousands:
James Wynn
James Wynn, a pseudonymous dealer on Hyperliquid, has turn out to be some of the mentioned figures on crypto Twitter (now X) attributable to his high-risk, high-reward buying and selling type.
Wynn began buying and selling on Hyperliquid in March 2025. He amassed important earnings by means of his daring buying and selling methods.
“Since I started buying and selling this yr on HyperLiquid I’ve made a complete revenue of $41,696,589.75 (on-chain). Subsequent objective is $1bn. Not for the cash. However for the legacy. Unlikely I’ll do it this cycle except I went max degen on shorting the highest, which I’m in all probability the one individual with this sort of wealth who’s keen to show it up on 40x leverage and put a big % on the road,” Wynn stated on Could 9.
The dealer had a number of profitable trades. On Could 24, he booked a $25.18 million revenue from a protracted place in kPEPE and $16.89 million from a protracted Bitcoin place. Different notable trades included a $4.84 million revenue from Fartcoin (FARTCOIN) on Could 13 and a $6.83 million revenue from Official Trump (TRUMP) on Could 12.
Wynn’s earnings peaked at over $87 million in late Could. Nevertheless, this was short-lived, because the trades started to backfire quickly after. Wynn confronted a sequence of serious setbacks.
On Could 23, he misplaced $3.69 million from a protracted Ethereum place and $1.59 million from a Sui (SUI) lengthy place. Two days later, on Could 25, he suffered a $15.86 million loss from a brief place in BTC.
“James Wynn has worn out nearly all his earnings on Hyperliquid. It took him 70 days to go from 0 to $87 million+ in revenue, and solely 5 days to lose nearly all of the $87 million+ in revenue,” Lookonchain posted on Could 28.
Regardless of shedding all of it, Wynn’s bets continued. The biggest blow got here on Could 30, when a protracted BTC place resulted in a lack of $37.41 million. Wynn’s losses prolonged into Could 31, with a further $1.20 million misplaced from one other BTC lengthy place.
Lastly, on June 5, Wynn misplaced $2.81 million on a BTC lengthy place, bringing his whole losses to $20.4 million.
“I closed my place. Defeated accepted. MM’s 1-0 Wynn,” he said.
On the time of writing, Wynn’s efficiency confirmed a win charge of 40.48%, with 17 profitable trades out of 42.
Nameless ETH Whale
Wynn’s downfall is a component of a bigger pattern, with different crypto merchants additionally shedding hundreds of thousands. In March 2025, an nameless cryptocurrency dealer, recognized by the pockets deal with 0xf3F496C9486BE5924a93D67e98298733Bb47057c, suffered a staggering $308 million loss after a 50x leveraged lengthy place on ETH was liquidated.
The dealer had opened the place when ETH was buying and selling at $1,900, with a liquidation worth of $1,877. Nevertheless, amid heightened market volatility pushed by world tariff considerations, ETH’s worth plummeted, liquidating 160,234 ETH.
Lookonchain reported that the whale had rotated all their Bitcoin holdings into this leveraged ETH commerce, amplifying the chance.
“Loopy! This whale has switched all of his lengthy BTC positions to lengthy ETH,” the publish learn.
Leveraged buying and selling, which makes use of borrowed funds to enlarge each features and losses, proved disastrous on this case, as a small worth motion worn out the dealer’s total place.
In the meantime, the dealer has not opened any positions on Hyperliquid since late March.
Hui Yi
Whereas leveraged bets have led to huge monetary losses, they’ve additionally tragically resulted within the lack of life. In June 2019, Hui Yi, the co-founder and CEO of the cryptocurrency market evaluation platform BTE.TOP reportedly took his personal life.
Yi’s misery was believed to be attributable to his involvement in a failed 100x leveraged brief place on 2,000 Bitcoins. The intense leverage amplified his losses, making his place extremely weak to even minor worth fluctuations.
There was additionally hypothesis that the two,000 Bitcoins may need belonged to purchasers. Some even instructed that Yi might have faked his demise to keep away from compensation. Nevertheless, no proof supported these theories.
An ex-partner confirmed Yi’s demise. This tragic incident highlighted the psychological toll of leveraged buying and selling and the hazards of utilizing extreme borrowed funds within the risky crypto market.
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