2025-10-16 16:05 |
Previously on The Big Bitcoin Short: a trader shorted Bitcoin minutes before President Trump’s tariff post and booked about $160 – $200 million.
Eye, a crypto investigator who helped frame the story by tracing wallets and proposing that Garrett Jin could be a front for a broader network, has now stepped back, citing safety concerns.
Eye suspended work on the Bitcoin short case after unsubstantiated allegations that the trade involved a network linked to World Liberty Financial.
Before stepping back on Oct. 14, Eye advanced a view that the wallet tied to Garrett Jin may be a conduit for information moving from insiders to traders able to build favorable positions around policy timing.
“Garret doesn’t seem to be the main actor. He is probably just a frontman, but this was the starting point for tracking the real insider trading ring…
The crucial information given to the HL whale most likely comes from a group of insiders who have long been exploiting confidential information from the White House rumors and official announcements ahead of time.”
The names raised include World Liberty Financial co-founders Zach Witkoff and Chase Herro, who are linked to Donald Trump Jr., and the contention that a leaker may have passed information to parties other than Jin, reinforcing a “front” hypothesis.
A 30% sell-off of WLFI tokens hours before the tariff announcement, at a time when Bitcoin dropped just 3%, has also raised eyebrows within the industry.
WLFI, BTC, SPY sell off (Source: TradingView)Eye said he would cease further publication, stating he had “drilled too deep,” and left open the question of who, if anyone, accessed nonpublic policy details.
The dispute grew out of the trade that shorted Bitcoin on Hyperliquid minutes ahead of President Trump’s Oct. 11 tariff post, an episode covered in our prior coverage.
During the move, liquidations across venues reached about $19 billion over 24 hours, with Hyperliquid reporting broad account losses.
According to CoinGlass, the wipeout ranked at the top of historical single-day dollar totals. CoffeeZilla has also analyzed the trade with his focus centered on the final add to the short, placed at 20:49 GMT, and the tariff post at 20:50 GMT, a one-minute gap that continues to frame the debate over what the trader knew and when the position was sized.
Jin has rejected the insider narrative and issued repeated denials. He said the capital belongs to clients, his team runs nodes and provides in-house insights, and he has no connection with the Trump family.
He also criticized Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao for amplifying Eye’s initial thread to a large audience, thanking CZ “for sharing my personal and private information,” and maintained that the short was a macro and technical call rather than a trade on nonpublic cues.
Interestingly, Jin deleted the tweet denying any connection to President Trump. The full post read,
“Hi @cz_binance, thanks for sharing my personal and private information. To clarify, I have no connection with the Trump family or @DonaldJTrumpJr — this isn’t insider trading.”
He also stated, “There aren’t that many conspiracies in this world. Stop making excuses for your ignorance and unprofessionalism.”
Jin laid out a five-point thesis he says informed his positioning, citing overbought signals across U.S. tech, China A-share tech, and major crypto pairs, positive correlation between crypto and U.S. tech, a turn in U.S.–China trade posture from Sept. 26 through Oct. 11, a broad shift from risk-on to risk-off into the date of the move, and heavy leverage across markets that could force a deleveraging wave reminiscent of prior crashes.
He added a call for “stability funds” at major venues. He argued that extreme leverage on assets without cash-flow backing raises the odds of disorderly price action regardless of direction.
Commentator Quinten Francois questioned why a wallet allegedly used for market moves would map so directly to public identities through an ENS path, calling the trail too convenient and urging caution about over-fitting social graphs built from a handful of hops.
Attorney John E. Deaton has moved the discussion toward formal review, saying that, if the allegations were borne out, regulators should examine the trades.
The wallet ascribed to Jin has not gone quiet.By Oct. 13, the account added a new Bitcoin short with roughly $496 million notional at 10x leverage, with a stated liquidation level near $124,270.
Trackers show several million dollars of unrealized profit with spot between $114,000 and $117,000 dollars. Two other Hyperliquid whales opened about $182 million in fresh shorts across majors and large-cap altcoins during the same window.
Jin’s history also draws scrutiny.
He ran BitForex between 2017 and 2020. The exchange went dark in February 2024 after tens of millions of dollars moved out of hot wallets and users reported frozen balances.
Japan’s Financial Services Agency previously cited BitForex for operating without registration, and Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission issued warnings as issues mounted.
Since then, regional coverage has listed a string of ventures launched after BitForex, followed by a focus on an institutional staking project. After Eye’s thread gained attention, observers noted that Jin modified public profiles on social platforms, removing some project references and adjusting privacy settings.
The regulatory frame remains unresolved.Bitcoin is regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for derivatives, while the Securities and Exchange Commission handles securities cases. That split affects any potential action centered on trading on material, nonpublic information.
As of Oct. 15, no U.S. market regulator or law-enforcement agency had announced an investigation or public inquiry into the Oct. 11 trades.
For the WLFI angle, prior public comments from the parties have rejected conflict-of-interest claims as “nonsense. ” None of the names cited by Eye issued new statements addressing the network allegation during the period.
To anchor the main facts since Oct. 11, here are the key figures and timestamps referenced in public materials:
Item Detail Final short add vs tariff post 20:49 GMT order, 20:50 GMT post Liquidations in 24 hours About $19 billion across crypto New BTC short opened Oct. 13 About $496 million notional, 10x, liq. $124,270 Unrealized P&L Oct. 14 Roughly $4–5.7 million with BTC near $114k–$117k Other Hyperliquid whales About $182 million of new shorts across majors Investigator status Eye halts posts, cites safetyThe same dashboard that guided our original note still applies to market structure over the next two to six weeks.
Open interest and funding rate direction across Bitcoin perpetuals remains the first step in determining whether leverage is rebuilding or the market is still cleaning up.
Exchange stablecoin flows can front-run appetite to add risk on major venues.
Equity futures and the dollar around tariff headlines continue to map intraday ranges for crypto during trade policy news cycles.
Live panels for open interest, funding, and venue balances are available through data providers such as CoinGlass.
What remains unknown is central to how this story evolves.
Jin has not identified clients behind the capital. The pathway linking public identities to the ereignis.eth and garrettjin.eth trail has not been clarified to a standard that ends the attribution debate.
Non-social sources have not independently verified Eye’s WLFI allegation, and the parties named have not issued new statements responding to the claim in the timeframe reviewed.
No U.S. regulator has opened a case or commented publicly on the Oct. 11 trades.
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