On-chain investigator EyeOnChain has allegedly recognized the mysterious Hyperliquid whale controlling over 100,000 BTC as Garrett Jin, former CEO of collapsed trade BitForex, which performed a suspected $56.5 million exit rip-off in February 2024.
The investigation traced the whale’s pockets addresses again to Jin via ENS domains ereignis.eth and garrettjin.eth, connecting funds withdrawn from exchanges like HTX and Binance seven to eight years in the past to his tenure at Huobi and the BitForex collapse.
1/ An investigation into the alleged id of the mysterious Hyperliquid/Hyperunit whale, who holds over 100,000 BTC. Lately, he offered over $4.23B in BTC to amass ETH and is similar particular person behind the $735M BTC quick order positioned on the identical platform. pic.twitter.com/WeNvmiYP8v
— Eye (@eyeonchains) October 11, 2025
Former Alternate CEO Denies Possession as CZ Questions Validity
Jin, who graduated from Boston College in 2008 with a level in economics, served because the CEO of BitForex from 2017 to 2020, earlier than the trade was accused of falsifying buying and selling volumes and working with out registration in Japan.
BitForex froze withdrawals in February 2024 after roughly $57 million was withdrawn from scorching wallets with out rationalization, with CEO Jason Luo resigning simply days earlier than the platform grew to become inaccessible.
Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Fee issued fraud warnings as customers misplaced entry to their property.
The whale just lately offered over $4.23 billion in BTC to amass ETH and opened a $735 million BTC quick place on Hyperliquid, timing the commerce simply earlier than President Trump’s tariff announcement that crashed markets.
Jin responded to the allegations by stating, “The fund isn’t mine — it’s my shoppers‘” and claiming he runs nodes offering in-house insights.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao shared EyeOnChain’s investigation thread, including, “undecided of validity, hope somebody can cross examine.”
Hello @cz_binance, thanks for sharing my private and personal data. To make clear, I’ve no reference to the Trump household or @DonaldJTrumpJr — this isn’t insider buying and selling.
— Garrett (@GarrettBullish) October 13, 2025
EyeOnChain’s investigation revealed that Jin presently holds 46,295 BTC, valued at roughly $5.19 billion, throughout eight pockets addresses.
Throughout August and September, he offered over 35,000 BTC for ETH utilizing each spot and perpetual contracts by way of Hyperliquid, using a sequence of BTC wallets that obtained over 570,000 ETH, which had been subsequently deposited into Ethereum’s Beacon Deposit Contract for staking via his firm, XHash.
Path of Proof Hyperlinks Wallets to BitForex Collapse
The investigation recognized that an ETH staking contract deployed by Jin’s linked tackle was initially funded by ereignis.eth on Binance Good Chain.
The very first pockets to work together with the staking contract was ereignis.eth, which deposited 32 ETH.
Evaluation of the pockets that opened the $735 million BTC quick place revealed that it obtained funds for charges from an tackle that had deposited $4.1 million in USDC to a Binance deposit tackle shortly earlier than.
The identical Binance deposit tackle had obtained $7.54 million from one other pockets that despatched $40,000 in USDT to ereignis.eth precisely two weeks earlier than the huge quick place was opened.
The ENS identify ereignis.eth, which means “occasion” in German, has a second ENS identify, garrettjin.eth, which instantly results in Jin’s X account.
Following EyeOnChain’s thread, Jin eliminated XHash from his profile bio and adjusted his profile image, although he maintained the knowledge on Telegram.
BREAKING: Garrett Jin , the Hyperliquid/Hyperunit whale modified his Telegram privateness settings proper after my put up, hiding his beforehand public pictures and telephone quantity. He additionally eliminated @XHash_com from his bio, identical to he did on his X profile after @emmettgallic posted about… https://t.co/GnikBkwnZn pic.twitter.com/9VM4zh7PNP
— Eye (@eyeonchains) October 12, 2025
Jin based XHash in 2024 as an institutional platform for non-custodial ETH staking, with EyeOnChain suggesting all staked ETH might have been used to onboard questionable funds from the BitForex collapse.
Between 2020 and 2023, Jin operated WaveLabs VC, launching initiatives together with TanglePay and IotaBee, which shut down in 2024, and GroupFi, which stays lively after receiving seed funding.
BitForex Exit Rip-off Left Customers With $57M in Losses
BitForex introduced peak buying and selling volumes of over $4.2 billion in January 2024 earlier than the suspected exit rip-off started with giant outflows from scorching wallets totaling $56.5 million throughout Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, and stablecoins.
The pockets drains appeared managed fairly than hacked, which suggests inner complicity.
CEO Jason Luo resigned on January 31, 2024, with the primary suspicious pockets transaction occurring on February 21 and the platform absolutely closing on February 23.
Following the shutdown, BitForex’s communication channels went silent, consumer complaints on platforms like Telegram had been deleted, and neighborhood managers grew to become inactive or modified identities.
In July 2024, BitForex introduced that its staff had been detained and was below investigation by the police in Jiangsu Province, China.
The trade promised to reopen for KYC-based withdrawals however saved buying and selling and deposits suspended earlier than shutting down fully.
The allegations come as Hyperliquid is frontrunning criticism of the trade relating to its lack of transparency.
@cz_binance pushed again after Hyperliquid’s Jeff Yan @chameleon_jeff accused centralized exchanges like Binance of underreporting consumer liquidations throughout final week’s market chaos.#ChangpengZhao #Hyperliquid https://t.co/oHnrmm4g26
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) October 13, 2025
Platform co-founder Jeff Yan accused centralized exchanges like Binance of underreporting consumer liquidations throughout final week’s market crash, claiming that some CEXs could possibly be underreporting by as a lot as 100 occasions throughout liquidation bursts.
Zhao responded not directly, stating Binance and BNB Chain ecosystem gamers “took lots of of thousands and thousands out of their very own pockets to guard customers” whereas others “tried to disregard, cover, shift blame, or assault rivals.”
The put up 100,000 BTC Hyperliquid Whale Allegedly Linked to Former BitForex CEO in Fraud Scandal – “The fund isn’t mine” appeared first on Cryptonews.