From James Wynn to Maji Ge, a Chronicle of the Rise and Fall of the Kings of Leverage

Author: Chloe, ChainCatcher

Since the market volatility intensified in early October, Brother Maji's leveraged positions on Hyperliquid have experienced consecutive liquidations, transitioning from heavily long positions at the beginning of the month to a forced liquidation stop-loss after the 16th, becoming one of the most representative cases of high-leverage crashes.

According to on-chain data and monitoring tweets, Brother Maji closed all his long positions in XPL, PUMP, and ASTER in the early hours of October 10, incurring a total loss of up to $21.53 million. Just a few hours later, he reopened a 5x long position in XPL on Hyperliquid, with an initial position of 500,000 tokens, valued at approximately $375,000. He then increased the position to 2.5 million tokens ($1.83 million) and simultaneously opened a 3x long position in ASTER (500,000 tokens, approximately $795,000), leaving only the PUMP position uninitiated, seemingly having closed out earlier but also appearing not to have.

On the morning of October 11, his ETH long position was forcibly liquidated, resulting in a loss of about $12.16 million in just two hours. The total loss for the month increased to $29.92 million, primarily concentrated in XPL and ETH long positions. After liquidating, he immediately increased his positions again, opening a 25x long position in ETH (2,000 tokens, valued at $7.63 million, opening price $3,825.01) and a 10x long position in HYPE (60,000 tokens, valued at $2.33 million, opening price $39.735), with a total position value of $9.968 million, both in a state of unrealized loss.

Shortly thereafter, Brother Maji increased his total position to $10.92 million, with an account margin of about $740,000 and a utilization rate of 82%, still retaining leverage expansion space. On October 12, he again stopped out of the HYPE long position, incurring a loss of $276,000.

The overall loss in his Hyperliquid account expanded to $11.03 million, with cumulative losses for the month approaching $49.59 million. At this point, Brother Maji still held 2,700 ETH long positions, totaling $10.3 million, with an average opening price of $3,806.

On October 15, according to on-chain analyst Ai Yi (@ai_9684xtpa), Brother Maji's account had accumulated losses of up to $53.62 million over the past 30 days (on September 19, his account was still profitable by $44 million). The 25x long position in ETH remained open, with a position value of about $879,000, just $61.5 away from the liquidation zone, with an unrealized loss of about $120,000; any further market dips could trigger a new round of passive liquidations.

Yesterday (the 16th), Brother Maji was liquidated in a chain reaction, reducing his position by 1,590 ETH and incurring a loss of $246,000, leaving only 585 ETH ($2.33 million). His account balance dropped to $32,800, with cumulative losses shifting from a peak profit of $43.64 million to a net loss of $13 million.

Until today (the 17th) morning, he sold 1.64 million PNKSTR tokens (valued at $119,000), incurring a loss of $214,000 (-65%), and subsequently transferred 47.43 ETH (approximately $186,000) into Hyperliquid to expand his position. He currently still holds 1,189 ETH, with a total value of about $4.67 million.

According to Hyperbot on-chain data (wallet address 0x020c…5872), as of the morning of October 17, the total assets in the account were approximately $228,000, almost entirely consisting of unrealized Perp positions ($228,000), with no additional assets, indicating a significant reduction in position size after multiple rounds of liquidation.

Although he still retains ETH long positions, the leveraged funds have been nearly exhausted, and his high-leverage strategy on Hyperliquid has reached a phase of conclusion. Brother Maji's leveraged positions on Hyperliquid have almost entirely vanished within a week.

Although he attempted to re-enter ETH on the morning of the 17th, trying to buy the dip after the crash, the current on-chain balance and position leverage suggest that his rebound potential is extremely limited. However, from Brother Maji's posts on social media, he seems to take the situation quite calmly, even joking with netizens about how his lines from the 2011 movie "Killer Ouyang Pen Zai" coincidentally validate his recent state.

James Wynn's Triumphant Return, Yet Again Liquidated in High-Leverage Trading

Additionally, trader James Wynn (@JamesWynnReal), another typical representative of high-leverage operations, has also seen most of his profits wiped out in the recent market turbulence.

Earlier this year, Wynn quickly accumulated over $43 million in total profits through high-leverage bets on Bitcoin and meme coins (like PEPE). During that time, his trading style was seen as representative of the Hyperliquid platform; however, good times did not last long. Starting in May, Wynn was liquidated for $100 million as BTC prices fell to $105,000, becoming a market sensation. He then requested donations from fans on social media to continue trading, and a few days later, he placed another $100 million leveraged BTC position.

The second $100 million leveraged position was also liquidated, prompting Wynn to stop using X and temporarily withdraw from the high-leverage cryptocurrency trading world.

Until recently, on October 15, Wynn injected $197,000 in stablecoins into Hyperliquid, initiating a series of 40x leveraged BTC long positions, as well as 10x leveraged KPEPE and HYPE long positions, with a total position value of about $4.8 million. The next day, sudden market fluctuations led to the liquidation of all his positions, drastically reducing his account balance to about $63,000, resulting in significant short-term losses.

He then opened a 10x leveraged KPEPE long position, which was partially liquidated again within 6 hours, leaving approximately 39.2 million kPEPE (about $271,000). Wynn's trading movements on Hyperliquid have been labeled as the most volatile in the industry.

Currently, the market is experiencing significant deleveraging due to flash crash events, with funding rates plummeting sharply. Analysts indicate that this suggests investors are reducing aggressive long positions, leading to a substantial decrease in market leverage trading volume.

Frequent liquidations and profit reversals are common in leveraged contract trading; when positions are in an extremely sensitive edge state, any minor market fluctuations can trigger liquidation, amplifying the sensitivity of gains and losses by the leverage multiple.