How a Crypto Gambler Tried to Play God and Ended Up Jobless, with a Side of $168M Loss

by

You Can’t Make This Up: The Man Who Bet Big and Wiped Out Bigger

What to know (or pretend to know):

  • The guy, who’d been throwing his money around like a drunken sailor in a casino, decided to short a bunch of tokens-Bitcoin, XRP, ZEC, and who knows what else-thinking he was some sort of crypto genius. Spoiler: he wasn’t. His $168 million gamble ended with a $5.5 million noir-style liquidation after Sunday’s bounce.
  • Instead of crying into his keyboard, he dumped another $115 million into Bitcoin and Ether shorts on GMX-because clearly, what’s a little more risk in digital land? Now, he’s sitting on a small mountain of paper profits ($1.4 million), which he may or may not choose to cash out before it all evaporates.
  • This high-stakes, zero-planning episode is practically a sequel to James Wynn’s earlier $100 million blowup-an adult version of “hold my beer” that no one asked for.

Picture this: a fearless “degen trader” (think “Dumb and Dumber,” but with markets) taking hundreds of thousands and turning them into a fine mist of digital dust. His plan? Short the market, because surely, this was the bottom. Instead, he got a mighty dose of reality-liquidated like a fish out of water, with a cool $5.5 million gone faster than you can say “margin call.”

His portfolio was basically a Frankenstein monster of tokens-BTC, Zcash, ASTER, BNB, RESOLV-the sort of lineup that screams “I know what I’m doing,” right before it screams “I have no idea.”

All of this unfolded after a week where tokens played chicken with multimonth lows and fear-mongering indices hit “extreme fear.” Apparently, his reaction was to double down, because why not throw more money into the abyss? His $115 million shorts on GMX look to be still holding on for dear life, with a tiny unrealized profit of $1.4 million, as if that’s some consolation prize.

Meanwhile, those who actually understand market risks can only watch this saga and chuckle. Or cry. Or do both while muting their notifications.

And here’s the cherry on top: Bitcoin’s hanging around at $94,100-probably wondering why no one remembered its birthday cake. Most of the weekend’s gains have been redistributed to the crypto gods, and our brave trader is probably reminiscing about what could have been… if only he had stopped at “maybe I shouldn’t risk everything on this.”

Read More

2025-11-17 20:02