James Wynn has returned to the public eye with yet another high-stakes wager: a 40x leveraged short position on Bitcoin worth 13.9 BTC or about $1,490,000. Almost a hair’s breadth from Bitcoin’s current trading zone, the liquidation price is sitting at an alarmingly low $108,630.
For those unfamiliar, Wynn built a cult following after pulling off a series of massive leveraged trades that at their peak turned him into one of the most profitable traders this year. Due in large part to enormous positions that few would dare attempt, his public Hyperliquid account was once sitting on an incredible $87 million profit. But the glory didn’t last. As Bitcoin started its volatile swings around the $105,000-$112,000 corridor, Wynn’s aggressive strategy backfired spectacularly.
A string of failed positions over the last few weeks evaporated nearly all of his gains. In just one brutal week, he posted a staggering $98 million in realized losses. The meltdown wasn’t pretty. At one point he was holding a 10,000 BTC long from $112,000 only to be stopped out on a weekend gap down after the EU tariff pause announcement. Attempts to flip short and catch the drop also ended in disaster.
As the market whipsawed between $105,000 and $109,000, Wynn was repeatedly liquidated, marking what some called a record-setting tilt. After all the dust settled, Wynn closed out with a negative -$12 million personal PNL, effectively erasing the legend he’d built. The remaining balance on his account is down to $4.4 million, a far cry from the billion-dollar notional exposure he was famous for.
So while this new 40x short has already drawn social media attention, the reality is that Wynn’s trading history is a cautionary tale. It raises the question: Is he trying to prove something or is this simply a last stand for a trader who flew too close to the sun? With the liquidation price sitting so tight at $108,630, this bet may end exactly like the others — spectacularly and with little left to salvage.
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