100,000 BTC Hyperliquid Whale Allegedly Linked to Former BitForex CEO in Fraud Scandal – “The fund isn’t mine”
On-chain investigator EyeOnChain has allegedly identified the mysterious Hyperliquid whale controlling over 100,000 BTC as Garrett Jin, former CEO of collapsed change 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the whale’s pockets addresses again to Jin by means of ENS domains ereignis.eth and garrettjin.eth, connecting funds withdrawn from exchanges like HTX and Binance seven to eight years in the past to his tenure at Huobi and the BitForex collapse.
Former Exchange CEO Denies Ownership as CZ Questions Validity
Jin, who graduated from Boston University in 2008 with a level in economics, served because the CEO of BitForex from 2017 to 2020, earlier than the change 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BitForex froze withdrawals in February 2024 after roughly $57 million was withdrawn from scorching wallets with out rationalization, with CEO Jason Luo resigning simply days earlier than the platform grew to become inaccessible.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 Commission issued fraud warnings as customers misplaced entry to their belongings.
The whale not too long ago bought over $4.23 billion in BTC to purchase ETH and opened a $735 million BTC quick place on Hyperliquid, timing the trade just before 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.”
EyeOnChain’s investigation revealed that Jin at present holds 46,295 BTC, valued at roughly $5.19 billion, throughout eight pockets addresses.
During August and September, he bought over 35,000 BTC for ETH utilizing each spot and perpetual contracts through Hyperliquid, using a collection of BTC wallets that obtained over 570,000 ETH, which have been subsequently deposited into Ethereum’s Beacon Deposit Contract for staking by means of his firm, XHash.
Trail of Evidence Links 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 Smart Chain.
The very first pockets to work together with the staking contract was ereignis.eth, which deposited 32 ETH.
Analysis 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 similar 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 title ereignis.eth, which means “occasion” in German, has a second ENS title, garrettjin.eth, which straight leads to Jin’s X account.
Following EyeOnChain’s thread, Jin removed XHash from his profile bio and altered his profile image, although he maintained the data on Telegram.
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 tasks together with TanglePay and IotaBee, which shut down in 2024, and GroupFi, which stays energetic after receiving seed funding.
BitForex Exit Scam Left Users 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 massive outflows from scorching wallets totaling $56.5 million throughout Ethereum, Tron, Bitcoin, and stablecoins.
The pockets drains appeared managed somewhat than hacked, which suggests inside 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, person complaints on platforms like Telegram have been deleted, and group managers grew to become inactive or modified identities.
In July 2024, BitForex introduced that its group had been detained and was underneath investigation by the police in Jiangsu Province, China.
The change promised to reopen for KYC-based withdrawals however stored buying and selling and deposits suspended earlier than shutting down totally.
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 person 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 person 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 hundreds of thousands out of their very own pockets to defend customers” whereas others “tried to ignore, disguise, shift blame, or assault rivals.”
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