Trader Linked to ’10/10 Whale’ Down $128M Overall—Now Shorting ZEC on Hyperliquid

Few market stories expose the brutality of concentrated leverage quite like a whale moving from nine-figure profits to a nine-figure hole. On-chain analytics firm Bubblemaps has identified a trader, Garrett Jin, as the address behind the so-called “10/10 whale”—a wallet that once seemed untouchable. According to the original report, Jin would have been up over $70 million had he never touched ETH. Instead, his overall PnL now sits at negative $128 million.

The numbers are staggering not because they represent a slow bleed, but because they came after a legendary run. The wallet initially made headlines shorting Bitcoin with near-perfect timing, netting roughly $100 million. Then, a pivot to leveraged ETH longs unraveled most of those gains. Bubblemaps estimates the Ethereum losses alone exceeded $200 million.

A Pattern of Extremes

The whale’s trajectory mirrors a broader trend of high-profile traders using on-chain transparency as a double-edged sword. With tools like Bubblemaps mapping fund flows, every deposit and position becomes public theater. That visibility can amplify reputational damage when a trade goes wrong, but it also shows how quickly a well-known entity can shift strategies.

Jin’s latest moves fit that pattern. A wallet connected to the group recently deposited millions into Hyperliquid, a decentralized perpetuals exchange that has been attracting serious volume away from centralized venues. The wallet purchased $10 million worth of HYPE, Hyperliquid’s native token, while simultaneously opening a $38 million short position on ZEC, the privacy coin Zcash.

The ZEC Wager and a Contrarian Streak

Shorting ZEC right now is a striking bet. ZEC was among the week’s notable gainers, as tracked in BlockchainReporter’s roundup of top crypto gainers, where it climbed over 58%. Going against that momentum with a position of this size suggests either a conviction that the rally is technically unsupported or a desire to hedge against broader market exposure. Either way, it is a high-risk flip attempt after a punishing string of ETH longs.

The choice of Hyperliquid as the venue also matters. Decentralized perpetual platforms have grown precisely because they offer leverage without many of the KYC and margin-call structures of centralized exchanges. For a trader nursing a $128 million drawdown, that environment can provide a less constricted field to rebuild—or deepen losses. It’s a reminder that while institutions are increasingly pouring capital into tokenized real-world assets and regulated structures, the permissionless side of crypto still hosts enormous speculative firepower.

Uncertainty Is the Only Constant

What remains unclear is whether Jin is operating alone or managing capital for others. Bubblemaps has linked on-chain activity to a single identity, but the sizing and speed of the moves could point to a larger group. The new short on ZEC could easily be a tactical position meant to capitalize on a local top, or it could be the next leg in a sequence of overcorrections.

The bigger regulatory context also hovers over such outsized derivatives activity. As US lawmakers debate the most significant crypto market-structure bill in years, the question of how leveraged trading is supervised—onshore and offshore—grows louder. For the 10/10 whale, the numbers alone will keep him in focus. Whether the ZEC short narrows the deficit or widens it could define the next chapter of an already extreme trading record.