Original | Odaily Planet Daily ( @OdailyChina )
Author: Azuma ( @azuma_eth )
Who is the most watched trader in the market right now? Hyperliquid whale James Wynn might be the one to take the cake.
After opening two epic orders in both the long and short directions with a scale of over US$1 billion (the long order exceeded US$1.2 billion, and the short order exceeded US$1 billion, both of which have been closed), this trader with Bruce Lee as his avatar has become the focus of discussion in the cryptocurrency market.
So who is James Wynn? Where does his huge amount of money come from? What are his famous achievements in the past? After the super short position is stopped, what is his next plan? Odaily Planet Daily will try to gradually unveil the mystery of James Wynn in the following article?
Getting Started: A Crypto Genius from a Small Town
According to James Wynns recent disclosure, he comes from a shitty town in England.
James Wynn said that no one could leave there. It was full of knife crime, drugs, alcohol and poverty... , but just like the protagonist in Slumdog Millionaire who successfully turned his life around with the help of TV shows, James Wynn used cryptocurrency to change his life.
Entering the circle: Meme God of War or Alameda Shadow?
“I was born in the trenches.”
This is James Wynn’s description of his early trading experience. Before he became rich through PEPE (more on that in the next section), James Wynn’s trading style was to frequently sell small-cap meme tokens, earning 2x here and 4x there…
However, community members have uncovered some different clues.
Although James Wynns X account was registered in April 2023, its associated address appears to have received funding from the notorious Alameda Research in 2020.
Currently, searching Who is James Wynn on X.com shows many speculations about the relationship between James Wynn and Alameda Research. Some even believe that James Wynn is a re-shelled puppet of Alameda Research...
However, Odaily Planet Daily did not find the funding transaction (it does not seem to be the main address), and there is currently no definite evidence about the relationship between James Wynn and Alameda Research, so this remains in doubt.
Rise: PEPE became famous overnight
James Wynn’s most famous achievement is undoubtedly that he bought PEPE at a very early stage and got “big results” - according to the description in James Wynn’s profile, when he first bought PEPE, the market value of the token was only US$600,000, and now the market value of the token is about US$5.7 billion.
On April 17, 2023, James Wynn posted a famous tweet. At that time, the market value of PEPE was only 4.2 million US dollars, but James Wynn predicted that the market value of the token would exceed 4.2 billion US dollars sooner or later. Now this goal has been achieved.
Due to differences in statistical caliber (mainly because the addresses are more dispersed), there are different opinions about how much James Wynn earned from PEPE spot (later contracts also made profits), but he determined in his own statement that the comprehensive profit exceeded 10 million US dollars.
In March this year, Onchain Lens monitored a transaction in which James Wynns associated address transferred 389.18 billion PEPE to Binance. At that time, the agency had calculated that the cumulative income of James Wynns associated address on PEPE had exceeded 16 million US dollars.
Controversy: Charges for taking orders, damage to reputation
As PEPE continues to rise, James Wynns popularity continues to increase, but controversy also comes with it.
In July 2024, overseas KOL Dylan published a long article revealing James Wynn’s controversial behavior on a meme project called Baby Pepe . James Wynn had publicly opposed paid promotion, but privately contacted the Baby Pepe team, asking for 2% of the token supply and promising to push the token market value to $20 million. However, James Wynn subsequently sold the tokens for a profit of $68,000 and blocked the team.
Dylan angrily criticized James Wynn and called him a liar and a criminal.
Peak: Switching to HyperLiquid
The time has come to 2025. Perhaps due to the continuous accumulation of wealth, James Wynns operation focus has gradually shifted from the meme market to the contract trading market with a larger capital capacity.
In recent months, James Wynn has frequently opened orders on the decentralized contract trading market Hyperliquid. In addition to BTC and ETH, the assets opened include popular meme tokens such as PEPE, TRUMP, FARTCOIN, AIXBT, etc. - among which the long orders of PEPE alone made a profit of approximately US$25.18 million.
Last week, James Wynn also opened a counter-trade with the well-known 50x Insider Whale, James Wynn opened long and the Insider opened short. In the end, as BTC violently broke through new highs, James Wynn had the last laugh.
Then came the “epic long and short orders” that have attracted the industry’s attention in recent days - James Wynn opened a $1.2 billion long order on Hyperliquid (in multiple transactions, with the last transaction losing $13.39 million, but still making a total profit of about $8.45 million), and then turned to open a $1 billion short order , the scale of which shocked the entire market.
Yesterday, the well-known on-chain analyst AI Auntie counted James Wynns 12 large transactions on Hyperliquid in the past month. Details can be seen in the figure below.
Ending: Retire from the Underworld
From 6:09 to 6:15 this morning, James Wynn closed his $1 billion short BTC position, totaling 9,402 BTC, using 40x leverage. The average opening price was $107,069 and the average closing price was $108,757, resulting in a loss of approximately $15.86 million.
Although this short selling eventually ended in stop loss, Hypurrscan data showed that James Wynns comprehensive trading profit on Hyperliquid over the past few months still exceeded US$25.109 million.
At 9:33 this morning, James Wynn published a post summarizing his contract trading results, and it seems that he announced that he would withdraw from the contract market. According to James Wynns disclosure, his contract account started with about 3 million to 4 million US dollars, and at its peak, it had a floating profit of 87 million US dollars. Now he has decided to stop profit and leave the market, and finally accumulated a profit of 25 million US dollars.
Shortly thereafter, James Wynn withdrew 28 million USDC from Hyperliquid, officially announcing his phased withdrawal.
Self-evaluation: Calm as water
The market has mixed opinions about James Wynns trading style.
Some people think that he is bold and careful, and is definitely a rare trading genius; but some people think that his behavior of publicly building a position is not wise, and he may become a target of sniping.
Another well-known trader, Eugene, commented today that James Wynns behavior of publicly building up super-large positions is quite controversial. From experience, this is almost always a bad idea, and its negative externalities often outweigh the positive effects.
As for James Wynn himself, he does not seem to be overly affected by external comments - in the tweet hinting at his withdrawal today, James Wynn mentioned that he was having a lot of fun gambling.
And last night, James Wynn also quoted a famous saying of Bruce Lee (it can be seen that he really likes it), which seemed to be describing his current mood.
Empty your mind and be as invisible as water. When water is poured into a cup, it becomes a cup; when it is poured into a teapot, it becomes a teapot. Water can flow freely and it can break through anything. Become water, my friend!
