Crypto leverage trader James Wynn loses $25M on Bitcoin bet

The millionaire leveraged crypto trader James Wynn has been liquidated of nearly $25 million in Bitcoin after betting with leverage that the cryptocurrency’s price would rise.

Wynn was liquidated for 240 Bitcoin (BTC) and had “manually closed part of his position to lower the liquidation price,” onchain analytics platform Lookonchain posted to X on June 4.

Lookonchain added that Wynn still held 770 Bitcoin worth around $80.5 million at a liquidation price of $104,035.

Data from Hypurrscan shows that the trader is currently sitting on an unrealized loss of nearly $1 million on his 40x Bitcoin long position.

After the liquidation, Wynn posted to X, alleging that the market was being manipulated against him. He has separately requested donations to “support his cause” of exposing market manipulation.

Wynn rose to prominence after making a string of large, high-leverage bets on Bitcoin through the trading platform Hyperliquid, where the information on Wynn’s position is public.

He initiated a $1.25 billion bet on May 24, going long on Bitcoin with 40x leverage after suffering a loss of $29 million just a day before.

A day later, Wynn had closed his long position and had instead opened a $110 million short position on the cryptocurrency.

On May 29, Lookonchain and Arkham Intelligence said that Wynn had suffered a loss of $100 million over the course of the week.

Unfazed by recent losses and wanting to make $1 billion, Wynn went on to initiate a second $100 million leveraged long position on Bitcoin earlier this week.

Dark pool DEXs

After Wynn’s $100 million liquidation, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao proposed creating a dark pool perpetual swap decentralized exchange, which he said could combat market manipulation.

Related: Bitcoin eyes $115K by July, but strong US job data to threaten rally

Zhao said that due to the transparency of DEXs, people can see orders in real-time, which can lead to front-running, slippages and other issues and that the issue is more severe on perpetual DEXs due to liquidations.

While the concept of dark pools is new to crypto in traditional finance, this feature has existed for many decades.

Dark pools provide liquidity and anonymity to institutional investors while keeping their trades private from retail investors. Dark pools can be cost-effective, however, they can also lead to conflicts of interest issues due to their lack of transparency.

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