THE MAN WHO WON AND LOST IT ALL

[tim0]

I read the tweets from this guy and wonder what you think of him:

James Wynn, a pseudonymous crypto trader, rose quickly by turning small meme-coin bets into millions and leveraged that success to place massive perpetual futures trades on Hyperliquid. His strategy: use high leverage (e.g., 40×) on large notional positions in Bitcoin and meme coins.

At the height of his fame on Hyperliquid, Wynn’s Bitcoin positions exceeded $1 billion notional, running on thin margin and ego. When BTC dipped below $105 K, he was hit by cascading liquidations — about 949 BTC, translating to a $99 million loss.

In the following months, Wynn was liquidated 45 times.

Last week alone: 12 liquidations in 12 hours.

He at one time sat on $66K unrealized profit — but instead of taking it, he added more leverage.

His balance now? $6,010.

***

His tweet on Oct 28 when Bitcoin price fell below 100k:

It’s only a 32% drop to $77k $BTC.
 
Had many of these previous cycles.
 
And we’re coming off the back of a 650% bitcoin rally.
 
IMO this would be a very very very healthy correction, we would wipe out over leveraged long, max fear would come in on the fear and greed index.
 
And those who are correctly diversified and position will survive.
 
- Wynn

[Fortify]

I'm not sure who is the bigger idiot here, this guy you talk about or the companies that keep allowing him to trade on leverage? They must be milking him. I don't understand how he is funding these bets but it just looks like he is doing an alternative form of gambling. The term liquidation loses all meaning when the guy can go through it 45 times, surely he is only placing fractions of his assets on at a time, because most people tend to get wiped out after one or two liquidations. You mention he had a $1 billion notional amount of bitcoin, losing $99 million instead and then talk about $66k unrealized profit? The numbers don't make any sense unless he had an insignificantly tiny range he could profit in. There's no point trying to glorify this and he is clearly deluded judging by the final sentence of the quote you attribute to him "correctly diversified" - there's no such thing when you have tunnel vision on one asset class.

[criptoevangelista]

I'm not sure who is the bigger idiot here, this guy you talk about or the companies that keep allowing him to trade on leverage? They must be milking him. I don't understand how he is funding these bets but it just looks like he is doing an alternative form of gambling. The term liquidation loses all meaning when the guy can go through it 45 times, surely he is only placing fractions of his assets on at a time, because most people tend to get wiped out after one or two liquidations. You mention he had a $1 billion notional amount of bitcoin, losing $99 million instead and then talk about $66k unrealized profit? The numbers don't make any sense unless he had an insignificantly tiny range he could profit in. There's no point trying to glorify this and he is clearly deluded judging by the final sentence of the quote you attribute to him "correctly diversified" - there's no such thing when you have tunnel vision on one asset class.

It seems more like bait to try and catch people who think they'll get rich with leveraged day trading. This is only good for the brokers who pocket thousands of dollars from these greedy people who are so addicted to trading that they seem like hard drug users... very few people do well in day trading, most lose money, you win by the spoonful and lose by the bucketful.

[HONDACD125]

It seems more like bait to try and catch people who think they'll get rich with leveraged day trading. This is only good for the brokers who pocket thousands of dollars from these greedy people who are so addicted to trading that they seem like hard drug users... very few people do well in day trading, most lose money, you win by the spoonful and lose by the bucketful.

People should have some sense to understand that day trading, especially in futures and margins, is not for everyone because most people can't manage their trades properly and eventually lose money. Only those who either have too much knowledge and experience or those who have very big capitals can actually survive in this market if they do it carefully. Money alone can't save you from losses, but if you have at least some knowledge and then a good amount of money, you can always make some money from the market even if all your trades don't work in your favour.

Those who get into futures without thinking about the possible consequences will always have a hard time. When you are getting into a market, you should know the potential risks you are going to deal with, and then you should know whether you can handle those risks or not, because if you can't handle them, then you are basically wasting your hard-earned money since you won't be able to make any money from this type of trading. It's better to stick to spot trading.

[tim0]

It seems more like bait to try and catch people who think they'll get rich with leveraged day trading. This is only good for the brokers who pocket thousands of dollars from these greedy people who are so addicted to trading that they seem like hard drug users... very few people do well in day trading, most lose money, you win by the spoonful and lose by the bucketful.

Those who get into futures without thinking about the possible consequences will always have a hard time. When you are getting into a market, you should know the potential risks you are going to deal with, and then you should know whether you can handle those risks or not, because if you can't handle them, then you are basically wasting your hard-earned money since you won't be able to make any money from this type of trading. It's better to stick to spot trading.

In the case of James Wayne, the money was never truly hard-earned. Margin trading giveth, and margin trading taketh away.

[7juju]

Someone's fortune rose to $1 billion and the person kept on trading? Like what exactly is the person looking for to achieve at the end of the day. Like was he trying to climb up the ladder of billionaires rankings. I don't know why some people won't ever take control of their greed and be satisfied with how far they have come. How many people get to make $1 billion in their entire lifetime, yet someone made it and blew it away just like that. I really find this story hard to believe. Like even when he was on a losing streak, he kept playing for 45 straight times, that's crazy. That must be worse than gambling addiction.

[logfiles]

Someone's fortune rose to $1 billion and the person kept on trading? Like what exactly is the person looking for to achieve at the end of the day. Like was he trying to climb up the ladder of billionaires rankings. I don't know why some people won't ever take control of their greed and be satisfied with how far they have come. How many people get to make $1 billion in their entire lifetime, yet someone made it and blew it away just like that. I really find this story hard to believe. Like even when he was on a losing streak, he kept playing for 45 straight times, that's crazy. That must be worse than gambling addiction.

Or, have you thought about the fact that he could be having some other stash of BTC hidden away from public knowledge and what he is playing around with is just disposable funds. Maybe also some PR for the trading platforms, giving the impression to many users out there that they can actually also make a kill by opening high leverage positions?
I mean, the guy is trending all over crypto twitter and media, so great advertisement to encourage newbies to enter the game.

[PX-Z]

That happens for very few peeps who are very lucky enough to have such gains then overestimated themselves that they can do this and that. In the end, they get liquidated and crash back to the bottom, simply put, too greedy.
Good thing if they actually learn their lesson from it and try again with a better mindset.

[Darker45]

I'm sure there's more to this than what you can read in this account's tweets. But whatever the real score is behind this James Wynn, I hope people, especially his followers--which is in the hundreds of thousands--won't just blindly follow his trade calls.

He's been right; he's been wrong. There are times when he's profitable. There are time when he losses. Any trader, good or bad, will have that track record. The bottom line, however, is that timing the market is risky. Especially when you're playing with leverage, you'll most likely end up negative.

[viljy]

OP, actually, do you seriously believe that there was some dude from the street who played with a billion dollars? For whom is it so easy to lose a lot of money? In fact, it has long been known about what could be hidden behind this epic story of the "great trader": here

[tim0]

Someone's fortune rose to $1 billion and the person kept on trading? Like what exactly is the person looking for to achieve at the end of the day. Like was he trying to climb up the ladder of billionaires rankings. I don't know why some people won't ever take control of their greed and be satisfied with how far they have come. How many people get to make $1 billion in their entire lifetime, yet someone made it and blew it away just like that. I really find this story hard to believe. Like even when he was on a losing streak, he kept playing for 45 straight times, that's crazy. That must be worse than gambling addiction.

His wealth never touched $1 billion; the figure reflected his leveraged exposure. On roughly 40× margin, his real stake was only a fraction of that — still enormous by any measure.

[Webutxo]

Someone's fortune rose to $1 billion and the person kept on trading? Like what exactly is the person looking for to achieve at the end of the day. Like was he trying to climb up the ladder of billionaires rankings. I don't know why some people won't ever take control of their greed and be satisfied with how far they have come. How many people get to make $1 billion in their entire lifetime, yet someone made it and blew it away just like that. I really find this story hard to believe. Like even when he was on a losing streak, he kept playing for 45 straight times, that's crazy. That must be worse than gambling addiction.

What is he supposed to do? He should quit and go home spend the money and take some baddies. He made a choice, not a smart one and made a mistake which can happen to anyone.

Problems with meme traders is that they think luck can happen to you many times and from what I suffered in meme coin, I will not advice anyone to do it even if I see other people making juicy profits. It takes alot of search to see which meme coin is going to pump and if the one you see finally pump, pack your bags and go home because it might not pump again, some people people will be stuck in that coin until everything goes back to zero.

[davis196]

I've heard stories about people, who became millionaires overnight via memecoin trading, but lost it all because of their gambling addiction(memecoin trading is actual gambling). When you get huge profits is a very short time, you start to think that your luck and fortune will continue forever and you become extremely greedy. Maybe this guy can afford to lose lots of money and maybe he has a very high risk tolerance. Or maybe some forum members here are right and he is a fake persona. A marketing trick made by a crypto trading platform to hook more traders into leverage trading. However, this option seems unrealistic, because he lost money and his leverage positions were liquidated more than once.