James Wynn Dethroned as Hyperliquid’s Biggest Loser in Latest Market Shakeup

Hyperliquid's perpetual futures market just witnessed a dramatic power shift—one that's left former top loser James Wynn in the dust.

The Reckoning

Wynn's position—once the platform's most spectacular failure—has been overtaken by an even more catastrophic trade. The new titleholder now shoulders losses so massive they make previous red ink look like minor corrections.

Zero Sympathy Zone

Traders on the platform are watching the carnage with a mix of horror and schadenfreude. One anonymous degen remarked: 'In crypto, you're either the hammer or the nail—and somebody just got hammered into oblivion.'

Welcome to decentralized finance—where the losses are real, the leverage is insane, and the only thing more volatile than the markets are traders' emotional states.

$39.6 million collapse on HYPE position

Hyperdash data reveals that 0xa523 sold 886,287 HYPE tokens at a combined loss of $39.66 million. The trade was executed shortly before the token rebounded and woke to the positive side with a 4% intraday price increase. 

Whale 0xa523 lost over $40M in less than a month, surpassing @AguilaTrades, @qwatio, and @JamesWynnReal to become the biggest loser on #Hyperliquid!

His list of losses is staggering:

He previously sold 886,287 $HYPE($39.66M) at a loss. If he had held, it WOULD be an unrealized… pic.twitter.com/jYLNhvWADr

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 9, 2025

Per Lookonchain’s calculations, if the whale had held the position instead of selling, it would have flipped to an unrealized gain of almost $9 million.

“This one is the father of James Wynn and Andrew Tate,” said one critic on X.

Additional losses from losing bets on other assets in addition to HYPE drove the wallet further into the negative. Initial losses from their long position in Ether, which they initiated following the HYPE crash, exceeded $35 million.

While making an attempt to reverse the strategy, 0xa523 made an emotional step and flipped to a short position in ETH, but that trade quickly went against him, costing an additional $614,000. 

The trader is currently exposed to another losing position, this time a $152.6 million short bet on Bitcoin. With 31.78x leverage applied, Hyperdash shows the wallet running a margin usage of more than 127%.

As of Tuesday, the short position carried an unrealized loss of $2.33 million, with Bitcoin trading near $113,021. The wallet’s equity value stands at $4.8 million against $152 million in active exposure, and even by Wynn’s standards, this is certainly extreme leverage.

Over the past month alone, the account has recorded a combined net loss of $40 million, placing it as Hyperliquid’s topmost loss casualty.

James Wynn displaced as Hyperliquid’s biggest loser

As reported by Cryptopolitan, Wynn made headlines in May after a $100 million Leveraged Bitcoin position was liquidated, later losing another $25 million on June 5.

Wynn took a hiatus from social media in the middle of July, deleting his X account and replacing his bio with the word “broke.” He reappeared a few days later with over $100,000 in assets, including a 40x leveraged bitcoin long and a 10x leveraged PEPE long.

By August, Wynn’s total reported losses had reached $23.6 million. His return to Hyperliquid this week included opening another leveraged account on HYPE, this time using referral rewards. Wynn has earned at least $117,730 in referral bonuses since joining the exchange.

$4 million wipeout tied to Launchcoin short

Another trader was similarly hit hard earlier today when a $4 million loss and liquidations resulted from a short bet against Launchcoin. Data from Hyperdash shows that the liquidation of the Launchcoin short position triggered automatic closures on several assets. 

More than 42 million Launchcoin tokens were forcibly sold at prices ranging from $0.11 to $0.12, with trade values above $5 million. The forced sales carried heavy losses, with one liquidation alone wiping out $780,000. The trader also made successive trades that erased more of his betting amounts, including $38,000 on MNT and more than $133,000 on another MNT position.

A massive $LAUNCHCOIN pump just wiped out a major short position of #GSRMarkets on #Hyperliquid.

The liquidation of #GSRMarkets' short position triggered a domino effect, wiping out their other shorts on $MNT, $POPCAT, $LINK, and $LDO, and zeroing out the account.

Total losses… pic.twitter.com/LetRXf7v4b

— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) September 9, 2025

The liquidation spillover affected short bets on other tokens, including POPCAT, LINK, and LDO. 1.8 million POPCAT tokens were closed at $0.26, resulting in a realized profit of $153,000, but most other trades went against the account.

KEY Difference Wire: the secret tool crypto projects use to get guaranteed media coverage