Crypto Whale Wynn Who Bet $1B on BTC Gets Liquidated for $118M Amid Price Dip

The pseudonymous cryptocurrency trader, James Wynn, who bet more than $1 billion on bitcoin (BTC) about a week ago, is currently suffering losses after being wrecked for more than $118 million. This liquidation was triggered by bitcoin’s dip below $105,000 early Friday.

According to data from Arkham Intelligence, Wynn has been liquidated on four positions so far, totaling 1,134 BTC (over $118.8 million). He still has an open position with 40x leverage on the decentralized exchange (DEX) Hyperliquid, which is sitting on an unrealized loss of $4.7 million at the time of writing.

$1B Bitcoin Bet Backfires

CryptoPotato reported last week that Wynn built his 40x leverage long Bitcoin position from $390 million to $1.1 billion within seven days. Well-known as a high-risk leverage trader and meme coin maxi, the whale continued to increase his bets as bitcoin’s price kept rising.

As BTC hit an all-time high (ATH) of $111,970 on May 22, the bet increased to $1.14 billion with an unrealized profit of over $39 million. By May 24, Wynn had pumped the bet to $1.25 billion, even as BTC had slipped from its ATH and was consolidating around $108,000 to $109,000.

Although analysts’ predictions and on-chain data suggested that BTC had more room for growth in the short term, macroeconomic changes triggered a reversal in the asset’s trajectory.

Buying and Holding is Better: Wynn

While Wynn took profits from his big BTC bet, he believed the asset could hit the $115,000 to $118,000 target this week. Unfortunately, the opposite is true. Bitcoin is down 2.5% in the past 24 hours and was trading around $105,093 at writing time.

Due to bitcoin’s decline over the last few hours, Wynn has been liquidated in four positions holding 91 BTC ($9.7 million), 527 BTC ($55.3 million), 421 BTC ($43.9 million), and 95 BTC ($10 million). Data from the Hyperliquid analytics platform, Hypurrscan, shows that the liquidations were triggered when BTC hit $106,330, $104,950, $104,150, and $104,620, respectively.

Addressing his liquidation on X, Wynn tweeted that his bets have exposed the corruption in the crypto market. He insisted it is better to buy and hold BTC in cold storage rather than follow his investment strategy.

One thing for sure is that I have exposed just how corrupt these markets are.

Guess it’s better to just buy and hold $BTC on spot / cold storage it.

— James Wynn (@JamesWynnReal) May 30, 2025