Author: Frank, PANews
Recently, the former PEPE big shot has transformed into a contract whale, frequently opening contracts with positions of several hundred million dollars on Hyperliquid, attracting market attention. As one of the few whales publicly active in the Hyperliquid community, James Wynn's daily position changes have become a hot topic for many investors.
What is James Wynn's background, and how does he manipulate the entire market's nerves with his statements and positions?
The '10U War God' who made a fortune with PEPE
According to James Wynn's self-description on Twitter, he was born in a 'forgotten little town' in the UK, filled with crime, drugs, alcohol, and poverty. James Wynn stated that he lived in dire conditions from a young age, 'barely making ends meet each week.'
In 2022, after getting involved in cryptocurrency, James Wynn became a member of the 10 U War God. He often floated between several ultra-small MEMEs until later discovering PEPE on iToken. Subsequently, James Wynn chose to heavily buy PEPE and thus earned tens of millions of dollars. Previously, PANews also verified this in another report on James Wynn (Related reading: Legendary Meme Coin Hunter James: Turned $7,000 into $25 million, now the following effect has failed).
From the information on social media, James Wynn started joining Twitter in 2023, and all his initial content focused almost entirely on promoting and publicizing PEPE coins. In April 2023, James Wynn predicted that PEPE's market cap would rise to $4.2 billion. At that time, the market cap was $4.2 million. A year later, this prediction not only came true but even exceeded his expectations. In October 2024, PEPE's market cap exceeded $10 billion at its peak, becoming one of the highest-valued MEME coins.
Of course, in the process, as one of the largest holders of PEPE coins, James Wynn also gained immense profits. According to previous statistics from PANews, James Wynn's principal in PEPE was only $7,600, and by April 2024, his profits had exceeded $25 million. Given that PEPE later rose again by about three times, James Wynn's total profit may exceed $50 million.
Transitioning after damaging fan reputation
By 2024, with the successful creation of the PEPE persona, James Wynn's posts began to involve more MEME coins (such as BIAO, ANDY, WOLF), and he often published some new tokens' CA to promote them. In April 2024, James Wynn recommended a token called ELON and crazily promoted it in the following days, similar to how he promoted PEPE. At the same time, James Wynn quietly laid out this token using several wallets. Under such a powerful recommendation, many community players began to follow and buy ELON. After the token skyrocketed by a hundredfold, James Wynn claimed that the token had problems and stated that he had cleared it. This series of operations caused ELON's price to drop by 70% in a short time, and many players were buried in James Wynn's liquidation slide. Such operations seriously damaged James Wynn's reputation in the community, and people began to realize that the MEME god was not reliable.
Subsequently, James Wynn's content gradually began to shift, transitioning from a community promoter to an investor and analyst. In the second half of 2024, he gradually turned to Bitcoin trends, market analysis, and other aspects. He changed his Twitter name from 'James Wynn (The GOAT)' to the current 'James Wynn Whale.'
A $1.2 billion position leveraged gamble
In March 2025, James Wynn officially transitioned to Hyperliquid and deposited about $6 million for contract trading. In just two months, through high-leverage operations on Hyperliquid, as of May 24, James Wynn increased his profits to about $48 million.
Especially in the past month, through frequent high leverage and large positions, James Wynn not only frequently made his operations trend on social media, but also proved his trading talent or luck again with a monthly profit of $36 million.
His trading goals on Hyperliquid are surprisingly simple, mainly focusing on Bitcoin and a few meme coins such as PEPE, TRUMP, and FARTCOIN. For example, on April 6, 2025, he went long on Bitcoin at an average price of $94,292 with 40x leverage; when Bitcoin's price rose from $94,000 to $100,000, his floating profit reached $5 million. Meanwhile, his 10x leveraged long position in PEPE had a floating profit of as much as $23 million. The trading of TRUMP and FARTCOIN tokens also contributed approximately $5 million to $5.57 million and $4.3 million to $5.15 million in profits respectively.
As of May 24, James Wynn's total funds on Hyperliquid were about $55.8 million, compared to an initial position of $1.25 billion. His overall leverage ratio was about 22 times, meaning that once market fluctuations exceeded 5%, he could face total liquidation. Therefore, his trading style is considered high-risk, high-reward and is not suitable for ordinary traders. Of course, considering that James Wynn had already earned tens of millions of dollars in principal from PEPE and other MEMEs, his positions were still within his risk tolerance. On May 24, James Wynn closed his $1.2 billion position, incurring a loss of about $13.39 million, and due to this huge loss, his overall profit also fell back to about $40 million.
Looking back at James Wynn's cryptocurrency trading career, from being obscure to a MEME leader, and then transforming into a contract trading giant. James Wynn's experience seems to best match people's imagination of the crypto wealth story. He also seems unwilling to be a low-profile person; despite holding immense wealth, he remains active on social media. This exposure has indeed brought him benefits. During the MEME promotion period, he could use his influence to ensure that the MEME coins he invested in always had followers supporting them. As he entered the contract trading phase, with increasing market attention, James Wynn's operations could also influence some traders' judgments about the market, potentially creating a following effect (though this impact may not be as obvious as during the MEME coin period).
Overall, James Wynn's success seems to be a mixed product of market timing, extraordinary courage (or extreme risk-taking spirit), and powerful self-marketing ability. Ultimately, what James Wynn's 'rise story' leaves the market may be more questions than answers. Is he a trading genius with a keen eye, or just a lucky person who seized the moment? Will his next stop be wealth or liquidation?
This is far from over; the crypto market has never lacked periodic 'heroes,' but becoming a 'evergreen tree' still requires the test of time.
