A mysterious trader, who made $20 million from leveraged trades on Hyperliquid and GMX, has been identified as William Parker, a British hacker with a history of financial crimes. The involvement of Parker in the suspicious trading activity has been exposed by crypto investigator ZachXBT. In an X post, the investigator explains his findings, including Parker’s past involvement in hacking, casino theft and onchain phishing schemes.
Mysterious Whale Identified as British Hacker
According to ZachXBT, the mysterious trader, who made at least $20 million from highly leveraged trades on Hyperliquid and GMX, is William Parker.
The crypto investigator notes that Parker is a British hacker with a history of financial crimes. As per ZachXBT, the British hacker was booked last year for stealing no fewer than $1 million from two casinos.
It was not the first time that he had been booked for a crime of this nature.
ZachXBT reveals that the same British hacker was arrested a decade ago for hacking and gambling.
Highlighting the remorseless nature of this hacker, the crypto investigator quips that it is clear the hacker has not learned his lesson over the years.
How ZachXBT Connected Parker to the Whale
ZachXBT reveals that it was a phone number that helped him to expose the connection between Parker and the suspicious leveraged trades.
He claims that the phone number was provided by a person who had earlier received a payment from the wallet address of the whale trader.
The crypto investigator also alleges that some public wallet addresses connected to the whale trader received proceeds from past onchain phishing schemes.
However, the claims made by ZachXBT have yet to be verified independently.
The $200M Ether Liquidation & Hyperliquid’s Response
The mysterious trader had a $200 million bet that the price of Ether would go up on Hyperliquid. The whale then intentionally caused their own $200 million position to be liquidated. This means the exchange automatically sold off their Ether to cover potential losses.
This massive liquidation caused Hyperliquid’s pool of money to lose $4 million. Even though it caused a big loss for the platform, the whale still made around $1.8 million from this action. This is due to the size of the trade, and the way that the fees and the price movement interacted.
Hyperliquid clarified that this was not a hack. It was a result of how their system worked under extreme trading conditions. To prevent this from happening again, Hyperliquid changed its rules for how much collateral traders need to keep in their accounts, especially for large positions.
Notably, after the Ether liquidation, the whale continued trading and opened a new large long position on Chainlink.
In conclusion, the exposure of William Parker as the $20M whale highlights risks in the crypto space, where hackers can exploit trading strategies for profit. Exchanges like Hyperliquid are tightening their security measures, but questions remain about how bad actors continue to operate undetected.
