tl;dr
Prominent on-chain investigator ZachXBT has alleged that William Parker, a UK man connected to a $1 million casino theft and previous hacking scandals, is the mysterious Hyperliquid whale. This entity reportedly manipulated crypto markets, making approximately $20 million through highly leveraged po...
Prominent on-chain investigator ZachXBT has alleged that William Parker, a UK man connected to a $1 million casino theft and previous hacking scandals, is the mysterious Hyperliquid whale. This entity reportedly manipulated crypto markets, making approximately $20 million through highly leveraged positions. ZachXBT's investigations linked the whale to suspicious accounts on various platforms and revealed a history of criminal activities.
Following this exposure, the Hyperliquid ecosystem token, HYPE, experienced sharp volatility, dropping 3.1% at the time of writing, with monthly losses nearing 40%.
In a thread on X, ZachXBT detailed how the whale’s initial funding came from an input validation exploit on a casino game. The exploiter apparently negotiated payouts via a now-deleted Telegram account, which ZachXBT linked to Parker’s UK phone number.
The whale gained notoriety in March after executing two massive leveraged trades. The first was a 50x leveraged Ethereum and Bitcoin long position, resulting in a $10 million gain just before U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and altcoin stockpile. Another short position on BTC with 40x leverage earned the purported fraudster an extra $9 million. Adding to the controversy, the trader liquidated a $340 million ETH long position on Hyperliquid, walking away with some $1.8 million in profit while causing a $4 million dent in the platform’s HLP vault.
ZachXBT’s investigations connected the whale’s address to various suspicious accounts on platforms like Roobet, Binance, and Gamdon. The sleuth identified the cluster of wallets tied to the whale, including one that received $17,100 from a phishing drainer earlier in the year. He also shared screenshots of the trader admitting on X to making $20 million through GMX and Hyperliquid trades.
Following ZachXBT’s exposure, HYPE, a Hyperliquid ecosystem token, experienced sharp volatility. At one point, it dropped sharply from an intra-day high of $15.11 to a low of $14.04. However, it recovered somewhat, climbing to about $14.41. At the time of writing, HYPE was down 3.1%, with its monthly losses amounting to nearly 40%.