Alleged ‘Trump Insider Whale’ Closes $200 Million Bitcoin Short

A Bitcoin whale that was previously alleged to have connections to President Trump’s family—which a crypto startup founder linked to the wallet denied—closed a BTC short position worth more than $200 million on Wednesday ahead of Bitcoin’s price rise. 

The Ethereum address ending in “7283ae” drew attention earlier this month when it earned close to $200 million by shorting Bitcoin and Ethereum just prior to Trump’s tariff threats on October 10—threats that yielded market volatility that led to a record-breaking $19 billion cascade of crypto liquidations. 

The address’s latest activity kicked off with a $30 million deposit of USDC to perpetual futures decentralized exchange Hyperliquid on Sunday.

Shortly thereafter, the whale began opening a massive short position on Bitcoin, or a bet on the asset’s price going down. Mark prices for the short ranged from around $109,000 to as high as $113,000 as Bitcoin rose on Tuesday.

But as the price of Bitcoin fell on Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday, the trade started to pay off—ultimately racking up more than $6.4 million in profit when the short positions were finally closed. 

The trade once more ended with shrewd timing, as Bitcoin has risen by more than 2% on Thursday, now changing hands at $110,500—above the mark price for the early short positions established by “7283ae.” 

With another $6.4 million in profit locked in this week, the account has now mustered nearly $100 million in total profits on Hyperliquid to date, according to data from Hyperliquid block explorer, Hypurrscan. 

The address is linked to former BitForex CEO Garrett Jin, who said he does not have a connection to the Trump family and did not rely on insider information before placing those shorts ahead of the liquidation frenzy two weeks ago.

In the last month, the account has routinely deposited tens of millions of dollars worth of crypto to Hyperliquid to open perps trades, or bets on the future price of a particular asset. The address currently maintains a $36 million balance in its perps account, which can be used to open new positions—though it maintains no open orders, as of Thursday afternoon.

While Jin maintains that the account belongs to a client and is not his own, an address linked to the former exchange executive himself was in the news on Thursday after making more than $50,000 by accurately predicting that President Trump would pardon Binance founder and former CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao.

According to data gathered by blockchain analytics firm Arkham, a Polymarket profile with positions on the “Will Trump Pardon CZ?” market is connected to Jin. That account began buying shares of “yes” 26 days ago for $0.30 and continued buying until October 11, with no other positions opened in other markets.

Trump pardoned Zhao on Thursday, resolving the market in Jin’s favor and ultimately netting him $56,824 in profits.