During the just-passed Dragon Boat Festival holiday, whale James Wynn vividly interpreted a drama in the crypto circle of "not treating money as money." He even live-streamed in real-time on Platform X the distance of the Bitcoin price from his liquidation price, coming as close as $20 away from being liquidated, causing a sensation across the internet.

Foreign-Version Chill, "Begging" for Margin Call

On May 30, James Wynn was first liquidated due to a high-leverage BTC long position, with his $100 million position being forcefully closed, resulting in the Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP) gaining about $530,000 in profit. He then proceeded to open new 40x leveraged long positions, only to face partial or complete liquidations again on May 30 and 31, with the liquidation price range maintained between $102,000 and $103,400.

According to Lookonchain data, his PEPE and BTC long positions were partially liquidated, resulting in a cumulative loss of up to $9.36 million and a total loss of $17.72 million. Subsequently, Wynn closed all positions, withdrew the remaining approximately $460,000 USDC from the HyperLiquid account, completely emptying it.

However, the gambler wouldn't easily leave the table. Just a day after being out of the market, he redeemed the previously pledged 126,116 HYPE tokens (worth about $4.12 million), sold them at an average price of $32.7, realizing a profit of $1.05 million. This transaction was seen as his "last hope." However, immediately after, he returned to the battlefield.

On June 2, James Wynn once again opened a 40x leveraged BTC long position, holding 944.93 BTC at an entry price of $105,890.3, with a liquidation price of $104,580, leaving very little room for downside risk. As the market fluctuated downward, he continuously added margin on-chain, adjusting the liquidation price to $104,360, then $104,150, and finally briefly pushing it to around $103,610, with only about a $20 gap from the actual market price.

As the leverage approached the liquidation threshold, Wynn initiated a fundraising request on social media, publicly stating: "If you want to fight against market makers and support me, please transfer USDC to the specified address." He promised that if the transaction succeeded, he would return the crowdfunded capital at a 1:1 ratio. This move quickly sparked controversy, with even Chill cursing in the comments section, calling this behavior "infringement."

According to on-chain analyst Ember Monitor, within just two hours, he received over $40,000 in donations, with $30,000 being transferred to HyperLiquid for repositioning, temporarily driving the liquidation price down to $103,610. He then added an additional 480,000 USDC in collateral, pushing the liquidation price to $103,637, momentarily avoiding liquidation.

Calling Out CZ Sparks PerpDEX Transparent Competition

The current Bitcoin market is in a highly strategic stage, with excessive contract leverage making it a hotbed for liquidation hunts. Due to weak buying momentum last week, low liquidity, and factors such as the summer weekend, large funds find it easier to manipulate prices in such neutral environments.

Cryptocurrency analyst Willy Woo believes that despite the frequent appearance of buy walls on the surface, it may actually be repeated manipulation by funders—such as James Wynn's liquidation price.

During James's continuous collateral addition process, a small incident occurred. As the Bitcoin price was nearing James's long position liquidation price, he screenshot-called out CZ asking, "How do you view this market manipulation behavior?" in an excited tone.

Immediately after, James directly tagged CZ to message him privately, and CZ jokingly replied that James no longer has 1BNB to use the contact tool, giving a shoutout to applications within the ecosystem.

After the private message incident, CZ cryptically tweeted a long thread, stating, "Given the recent market events, I believe now may be a good time to launch a dark pool perpetual contract DEX. The concept of a dark pool perp DEX—shielding the order book, delaying display of margin changes, and even hiding transaction addresses and contract funding paths, can be technically achieved through encryption schemes like ZK."

He believes that the current DeFi market's openness and transparency have ironically become a weakness for high-leverage traders, with on-chain order books, liquidation prices, and collateral flows all easily visible, making any large position a potential target for hunting. While centralized exchanges can still hide account identities, users on-chain may face opponents such as market makers, bots, arbitrageurs, and other copycat funds acting in concert.

This aligns closely with James Wynn's experience, as his liquidation price was continuously tracked, social media scrutinized, and even his initiated "1:1 fundraising" was openly analyzed in real-time on-chain due to his public address, becoming a public experiment in the eyes of the market and media.

CZ is now openly discussing dark pool perp DEX, not on a whim, but more like a deliberate signal release. As the James Wynn incident continues to ferment on-chain, the market attention and user activity of next-generation perp DEXs like HyperLiquid have been constantly rising. These platforms have truly begun to touch the cake of centralized exchanges.

In past cycles, DeFi derivative platforms have always been seen as experimental products with weak liquidity and rough user experience. But this time, the perp DEX model represented by HyperLiquid is becoming increasingly mature not only in user trading experience, asset stability, and even "gamble-like" design, but also by creating strong dramatic tension and community engagement on-chain through its liquidation mechanism and high leverage strategies.

As these decentralized platforms gradually directly confront the core business of centralized exchanges — high-frequency contract trading, the once clear boundaries between them have begun to blur, and both sides have started to take each other seriously.

Hyperliquid's Celebrity Endorser?

The controversy surrounding James Wynn is far more than just about him crowdfunding to add to his margin, but has sparked widespread community discussion about the "scripted" nature he displayed behind a series of extreme actions.

Just before James Wynn redeemed $1.05 million in profits from HYPE and was preparing to open a new position, he posted a ceremonious tweet announcing a temporary farewell to contract trading. What's even more eye-catching is his high praise for Hyperliquid, saying, "Thanks for the hospitality, Hyperliquid. Your service is impeccable, and the platform is outstanding."

This expression of gratitude quickly raised suspicions, especially since this was right after he had been liquidated multiple times on-chain with huge losses. Many in the community speculate that James seems more like a "scripted character" set up by Hyperliquid on-chain to generate unprecedented attention and discussion volume for the platform through high-leverage and high-frequency social media operations.

In fact, this speculation is not baseless. In the past few weeks, there have been rumors in the community that James Wynn, while opening extreme leveraged positions on Hyperliquid, may have been hedging in the opposite direction on other exchanges, creating influence through on-chain topics, indirectly boosting platform user activity, and attracting widespread attention to the HYPE token and its ecosystem.

As James has publicly disclosed having multiple exchange accounts frozen and funds restricted, the outside world has begun to re-examine the veracity of these rumors, and he himself has come out swinging in subsequent remarks, directly stating:

「I support decentralization and oppose corruption. I support Hyperliquid and oppose market manipulation. You can't catch me with any evidence. My wallet is clean, my transactions are clean. I have never taken any promotion fees, nor have I engaged in pump and dump. I am just a meme coin gambler and HL player forged on the blockchain.」

This self-defense rhetoric is intense and emotional, more like a proactive labeling of oneself as a clean player on the blockchain. However, in the eyes of the community, this high-profile expression of contrast appears more like a carefully orchestrated drama for marketing purposes.

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes also posted on social media, stating, "This could potentially be one of the most successful exchange marketing campaigns in crypto history. Additionally, this guy is likely conducting hedge trades in another anonymous address, specifically gearing up for the next Hyperliquid airdrop."

As of June 3, with the Bitcoin price dropping, James Wynn's 40x long position briefly turned into a profit and then back into a loss, while Hyperliquid continued to be the focal point of discussion in this ongoing blockchain saga.

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