From James Wynn to Magic Mike, the Rise and Fall of the Kings of Leverage

Since the market volatility intensified at the beginning of October, Ma Ji Da Ge's leveraged positions on Hyperliquid have been continuously liquidated, from heavy long positions at the start of the month to a stop-loss liquidation on the 16th, becoming one of the most representative high-leverage collapse cases.

According to on-chain data and monitoring tweets, Ma Ji Da Ge closed all his XPL, PUMP, and ASTER long positions on the early morning of October 10, incurring cumulative losses of $21.53 million. A few hours later, he reopened a 5x long position on XPL on Hyperliquid, with an initial position of 500,000 tokens, valued at approximately $375,000. The position was then increased to 2.5 million tokens (value $1.83 million), while simultaneously opening a 3x long position on ASTER (500,000 tokens, valued at approximately $795,000). He had not yet opened a PUMP position, seemingly having closed his previous positions, but also as if he hadn't.

On the morning of October 11, his ETH long position was forcibly liquidated, resulting in a loss of approximately $12.16 million within two hours. Total monthly losses increased to $29.92 million, mainly concentrated on XPL and ETH long positions. After liquidation, he immediately re-entered the market, opening a 25x long position on ETH (2,000 tokens, valued at $7.63 million, entry price $3,825.01) and a 10x long position on HYPE (60,000 tokens, valued at $2.33 million, entry price $39.735). Both positions had a total value of $9.968 million and were both in a floating loss state.

Soon after, Ma Ji Da Ge added more to his position, bringing the total position value to $10.92 million. His account margin was approximately $740,000, with a usage rate of 82%, still retaining leverage expansion space. On October 12, he again stopped out his HYPE long position, losing $276,000.

The overall Hyperliquid account loss expanded to $11.03 million, with the monthly cumulative loss approaching $49.59 million. At this point, Ma Ji Da Ge still held 2,700 ETH long positions, with a total position value of $10.3 million, with an average entry price of $3,806.

On October 15, according to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa), the 30-day cumulative loss in Ma Ji Da Ge's account had reached $53.62 million (on September 19, his account was still profitable by $44 million). The 25x long position on ETH remained open, with a value of approximately $8.79 million, only $61.5 away from the liquidation zone, with a floating loss of about $120,000. Any further market downturn could trigger another round of forced liquidation.

Yesterday (the 16th), Ma Ji Da Ge was liquidated in a series of events, reducing his ETH position by 1,590 tokens within 11 hours, incurring a loss of $246,000, leaving only 585 tokens (valued at $2.33 million). His account balance dropped to $32,800, with cumulative losses shifting from a peak profit of $43.64 million to a net loss of $13 million.

Until today (the 17th), he sold 1.64 million PNKSTR tokens (valued at $119,000), incurring a loss of $214,000 (-65%), and then transferred 47.43 ETH (approximately $186,000) into Hyperliquid to expand his position. He still holds 1,189 ETH, with a total value of approximately $4.67 million.

According to Hyperbot on-chain data (wallet address 0x020c...5872), as of the morning of October 17, the account's total assets were approximately $228,000, almost entirely consisting of unliquidated Perp positions ($228,000), with no additional assets, indicating that his position size has significantly decreased after multiple liquidations.

Although he still retains ETH long positions, his leveraged funds have been largely exhausted, and his high-leverage strategy on Hyperliquid has entered a phase of temporary conclusion. Ma Ji Da Ge's leveraged positions on Hyperliquid have almost completely disappeared within a week.

Although he re-added to his ETH position in the early morning of the 17th, attempting to take advantage of the drop and counterattack, based on current on-chain balances and leveraged positions, his rebound potential is extremely limited. However, from his social media posts, it seems that he is relatively calm about this situation, even joking with netizens about how his movie lines from 2011, "Killer, Ouyang Penzhen," coincidentally matched his recent situation.

James Wynn Returns Triumphantly, But High-Leverage Trading Ends Again with Liquidation

Additionally, another typical representative of high-leverage operations, trader James Wynn (@JamesWynnReal), also lost most of his profits during recent market turbulence.

At the beginning of this year, Wynn rapidly accumulated over $43 million in total profits through high-leverage bets on Bitcoin and meme coins (such as PEPE). During that period, his trading style was seen as representative of the Hyperliquid platform. However, the good times did not last long. Starting in May, Wynn was liquidated for $100 million due to Bitcoin's price dropping to $105,000, becoming a market hotspot. Afterwards, he requested donations from fans on social media to continue trading, and a few days later, he placed another $100 million leveraged BTC position.

Subsequently, the second $100 million leveraged position was also liquidated, prompting Wynn to deactivate X and temporarily exit the high-leverage cryptocurrency trading world.

Until recently, on October 15, Wynn injected $197,000 in stablecoins into Hyperliquid, opening a series of 40x leveraged BTC long positions, 10x leveraged KPEPE and HYPE long positions, with a total position value of approximately $4.8 million. The next day, sudden market fluctuations caused his positions to be fully liquidated, reducing his account balance to approximately $63,000, suffering significant short-term losses.

He then opened a 10x leveraged KPEPE long position, which was partially liquidated within 6 hours, leaving approximately 39.2 million KPEPE tokens (valued at $271,000). Wynn's trading activities on Hyperliquid are regarded by the market as the most volatile among industry professionals.

Currently, the market has shown a clear trend of de-leveraging due to the flash crash event, with funding rates sharply declining. Analysts stated that this indicates investors are reducing aggressive long positions, and the volume of leveraged trading in the market has significantly declined.

Multiple liquidations / profit recaptures are common in leveraged contract trading. When positions are in an extremely sensitive edge state, any minor market fluctuation can trigger a liquidation, and the sensitivity of profits and losses is amplified by the leverage multiple.