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From '10U' War God to 1.2 billion contract whale: James Wynn's crazy gambling journey
#巨鲸JamesWynn动态
Recently, the former PEPE big shot has transformed into a contract whale, frequently opening contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars on Hyperliquid, attracting market attention. As one of the few whales who publicly identify themselves and remain active in the community on Hyperliquid, James Wynn's daily position changes have become a hot topic for many investors. What is James Wynn's background, and how does he influence the entire market with his words and positions?
The '10U War God' who started with PEPE
According to James Wynn's self-description on Twitter, he was born in a 'forgotten small town' in the UK, filled with crime, drugs, alcohol, and poverty. James Wynn stated that he lived in deep water and fire since childhood, 'barely making ends meet every week.'
In 2022, after getting involved in cryptocurrency, James Wynn became a member of the 10 U War God. He often drifted between several ultra-small MEME coins until he later discovered PEPE on iToken. Subsequently, James Wynn chose to heavily invest in PEPE and made tens of millions of dollars as a result. Previously, PANews had verified this in another report about James Wynn from the blockchain. (Related reading: Legendary Meme coin hunter James: Made $25 million from $7,000, now the hype effect has failed)
From the information on social media, James Wynn started joining Twitter in 2023, and almost all of his initial content focused on promoting and advertising PEPE coins. In April 2023, James Wynn predicted that the market capitalization of PEPE tokens would rise to $4.2 billion. At that time, the market capitalization was $4.2 million. A year later, this prediction not only came true but even exceeded his expectations at that time. In October 2024, PEPE's market cap peaked at over $10 billion, becoming one of the highest-valued MEME coins.
Of course, during this process, as one of the largest holders of PEPE coins, James Wynn also made huge profits. According to previous statistics from PANews, James Wynn's initial investment in PEPE was only $7,600, and by April 2024, his earnings had exceeded $25 million. Given that PEPE later rose again by about three times, James Wynn's total earnings may exceed $50 million.
Reputation damaged after harvesting fans, transitioning
By 2024, with the successful creation of the PEPE persona, James Wynn's posts began to cover more MEME coins (such as BIAO, ANDY, WOLF), and he often published CA of new tokens to hype them. In April 2024, James Wynn recommended a token called ELON and subsequently started a frenzied hype like he did with PEPE. Meanwhile, James Wynn quietly accumulated this token through several wallets. Under his highly influential recommendation, many community players began to follow suit and buy ELON. After the token increased by a hundred times, James Wynn claimed there were problems with the token and stated that he had sold all his holdings. This series of actions caused ELON's price to drop by 70% in a short period, leaving many players buried in James Wynn's sell-off slide. Such actions severely damaged James Wynn's reputation in the community, and people began to realize that the MEME deity was unreliable.
Subsequently, James Wynn's content gradually began to shift from a community promoter to an investor and analyst. In the second half of 2024, he started to gradually turn towards Bitcoin trends, market analysis, and so on. He also changed his Twitter name from 'James Wynn (The GOAT)' to the current 'James Wynn The Whale.'
1.2 billion dollar high leverage gamble
In March 2025, James Wynn officially transitioned to Hyperliquid and deposited about $6 million in funds for contract trading. In just two months, through high-leverage operations on Hyperliquid, by May 24, James Wynn increased his profits to around $48 million.
Especially in the past month, through frequent high leverage and large position investments, James Wynn not only frequently made his operations hit the social media hot list but also proved his trading talent or luck again with a monthly profit of $36 million.
His trading targets on Hyperliquid are surprisingly simple, mainly focusing on Bitcoin and a few meme coins like PEPE, TRUMP, and FARTCOIN. For example, on April 6, 2025, he went long on Bitcoin with an average price of $94,292 at 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 trades of TRUMP and FARTCOIN tokens contributed approximately $5 million to $5.57 million and $4.3 million to $5.15 million in profit, respectively.
As of May 24, James Wynn's total funds on Hyperliquid were about $55.8 million, compared to the $1.25 billion positions he opened. His overall leverage ratio was about 22 times. Under such leverage, if the market fluctuated more than 5%, he could face a full liquidation. Therefore, his trading style is high-risk and high-reward, which is not suitable for ordinary traders. Of course, considering that James Wynn had already made tens of millions of dollars in principal from MEME coins like PEPE, his positions were within his manageable risk range. On May 24, James Wynn closed his position worth $1.2 billion, with a loss of about $13.39 million, and due to this significant loss, his overall profit also fell back to around $40 million.
Looking back at James Wynn's cryptocurrency trading career, from being obscure to becoming a MEME leader, and then transforming again into a contract trading whale. James Wynn's experience seems to fit people's imagination of cryptocurrency wealth stories the most. He also seems unwilling to be a low-key person. Despite holding immense wealth, he remains active on social media. This exposure has indeed brought him benefits; during the MEME hype period, he could leverage his influence to ensure that the MEME coins he invested in always had followers to support them. By the time of the contract trading phase, as market attention increased, James Wynn's operations would in some way influence some traders' judgments on market trends, potentially creating a following effect (though this impact may not be as pronounced as during the MEME coin period).
Overall, James Wynn's success seems to be a mix of market timing, exceptional courage (or extreme risk-taking spirit), and strong self-marketing ability. Ultimately, what James Wynn's 'origin story' leaves for the market may be more questions than answers. Is he a discerning trading genius or merely a lucky person who caught the wave of the times? Is the next stop wealth or liquidation?
This is far from over; the crypto market has never lacked periodic 'tycoons,' but becoming a 'evergreen tree' still requires the test of time.
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