Onchain sleuth ZachXBT stated he had recognized the mysterious whale who profited $20 million from extremely leveraged trades on Hyperliquid and GMX as a British hacker going by the identify William Parker.
In accordance with ZachXBT’s March 20 X post, Parker — who was beforehand referred to as Alistair Packover earlier than altering his identify — was arrested final yr for allegedly stealing round $1 million from two casinos in 2023.
Parker additionally made headlines a decade in the past for allegations of hacking and playing, ZachXBT stated.
“It’s abundantly clear WP/AP has not realized his lesson over time after serving time for fraud and can possible proceed playing,” ZachXBT stated.
Supply: ZachXBT
Associated: Hyperliquid ups margin requirements after $4 million liquidation loss
ZachXBT stated his findings are primarily based on a cellphone quantity supplied by an individual who allegedly acquired a cost from the whale dealer’s pockets handle.
He additionally stated that public pockets addresses related to the whale dealer acquired proceeds from previous onchain phishing schemes.
Cointelegraph has not independently verified ZachXBT’s claims.
Huge leveraged bets
The mysterious whale rose to prominence after profiting roughly $20 million from extremely leveraged trades — in some circumstances with as much as 50x leverage — on decentralized perpetuals exchanges Hyperliquid and GMX.
On March 12, the dealer deliberately liquidated an roughly $200 million Ether (ETH) lengthy, inflicting Hyperliquid’s liquidity pool to lose $4 million.
In the meantime, the whale earned earnings of some $1.8 million.
Hyperliquid stated the liquidation was not an exploit however somewhat a predictable consequence of how the buying and selling platform operates underneath excessive situations. The DEX later revised its collateral rules for merchants with open positions to protect in opposition to such occurrences sooner or later.
On March 14, the whale took another multimillion-long position, this time on Chainlink (LINK).
Perpetual futures, or “perps,” are leveraged futures contracts with no expiry date. Merchants deposit margin collateral — usually USDC (USDC) for Hyperliquid — to safe open positions.
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