On the evening of October 10, 2025, the crypto market experienced a "Black Friday" style crash, with Bitcoin's price briefly falling below $105,000. The daily liquidation volume exceeded $19 billion, setting a record for the largest liquidation in crypto history. In this market catastrophe, the actions of a mysterious whale drew widespread attention—he sold over $4.23 billion worth of Bitcoin and swapped it for Ethereum. As on-chain detectives conducted deeper investigations, clues about this massive transaction pointed directly to a Chinese individual named Garrett Jin.
01 Market Crash: A "Perfect Storm" of Leverage Liquidation
From October 10 to 11, the crypto market underwent a "2025 Leverage Reset" Black Friday. The trigger for this crash was a post by U.S. President Trump on social media, announcing a 100% tariff on Chinese goods, which sparked panic selling of global risk assets. Bitcoin's price dropped from a high of over $126,000 to below $110,000, with a single-day decline of 13.5%, causing the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies to evaporate by nearly $800 billion.
The deeper reason for the market collapse was excessive leverage. The chain liquidation of cross-margin accounts triggered a "domino effect": one forced liquidation led to the sale of collateral, further depressing prices and causing more liquidations. Meanwhile, platforms like Binance experienced system outages during the market's extreme volatility, with order books freezing and data displays malfunctioning, exacerbating user losses.
02 Whale Operations: Precise Short Selling and Position Swapping
Investigations by on-chain detective Eye revealed that a HyperLiquid whale holding over 100,000 Bitcoins executed a series of precise operations before and after the crash.
Spot Position Swap: Between August and September, this whale sold over 35,000 BTC (worth $4.23 billion) through the Hyperliquid/Hyperunit platform, exchanging it for 570,000 ETH, which were all staked in the Beacon deposit contract.
Massive Short Selling: On October 7, the whale deposited 3,000 BTC and opened a short position in Bitcoin, subsequently expanding the short position to $735 million during the crash, while holding $353 million in ETH short positions.
Remarkable Profits: It is estimated that the whale's short position made a profit of approximately $190 million to $200 million within 24 hours.
03 Identity Emergence: From ENS Domain to Chinese Background
The exposure of the whale's identity began with tracking the flow of on-chain funds. Detective Eye discovered that the whale's address was associated with the ENS domain "ereignis.eth," which also had another ENS name "garrettjin.eth," directly pointing to X platform user @GarrettBullish—namely, Garrett Jin.
Funding Links: The whale's address had previously transferred $40,000 USDT to Garrett Jin through an intermediary wallet, forming an indirect connection.
Sensitive Reaction: After the investigation was published, Garrett Jin quickly deleted the @XHash_com information from his social media profile and modified his Telegram privacy settings, raising further speculation.
04 Background Reveal: From Traditional Finance to Problematic Exchanges
Garrett Jin's resume features a complex background in both traditional finance and the crypto industry:
Early Experience: Graduated in 2008 from Boston University with a degree in economics and previously worked at China Construction Bank.
Crypto Career: Joined Huobi (HTX) in 2014 as Operations Director and served as CEO of BitForex from 2017 to 2020.
Controversial History: BitForex fell into a fake trading volume scandal after his departure and closed in 2024 due to the theft of $57 million from its hot wallet, with the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission issuing a fraud warning against it.
Entrepreneurial Projects: Founded WaveLabs VC in 2020, launching projects like TanglePay and XHash, with XHash being questioned for potentially consolidating suspicious funds as a non-custodial Ethereum staking platform.
05 Response and Doubts: A Rashomon Dispute
In response to the allegations, Garrett Jin addressed the X platform on October 13:
Denial of Insider Trading: "I have no connection to the Trump family or Donald Trump Jr.—this is not insider trading."
Defense of Fund Ownership: "This fund belongs to my clients; we operate nodes for them and provide research insights."
Promise of Further Explanation: He stated he would share "bearish insights, views on the 1011 incident, and suggestions for industry improvements."
However, the community remained skeptical of his explanations:
CZ's Attention: Binance founder Zhao Changpeng retweeted the investigation, stating, "I hope someone can cross-verify," escalating the situation.
ZachXBT's Doubts: The well-known on-chain detective pointed out that the direct fund transfer between Garrett Jin and the whale was only $40,000 USDT, suggesting insufficient evidence and possibly just a friendship.
Divergent Industry Views: Analyst Quinten François questioned the obvious connection to the ENS domain, stating, "If manipulation is involved, why use an .eth name pointing to oneself?"
06 Unsolved Mystery: Potential Connection Between the Whale and Garrett Jin
Despite Garrett Jin denying control over the whale's account, the following clues remain suspicious:
Funding Model: The whale's primary source of funds came from Bitcoin withdrawn from exchanges like HTX and OKX years ago, aligning with Garrett Jin's work experience at Huobi and the timeline of funds disappearing from BitForex.
Ongoing Holdings: The related address still holds 46,295 BTC, valued at approximately $5.19 billion.
Platform Association: XHash, as a staking platform founded by Garrett Jin, has been accused of potentially being used to consolidate fund flows.
As of the time of publication, Garrett Jin's promised explanations have not been fully disclosed, and the differing views of on-chain detectives Eye and ZachXBT have made the truth even more elusive.
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