100,000 BTC Hyperliquid Whale Allegedly Linked to Former BitForex CEO in Fraud Scandal

Core Insights - EyeOnChain has identified Garrett Jin, former CEO of BitForex, as the whale controlling over 100,000 BTC, linked to a suspected $56.5 million exit scam in February 2024 [1][2] - Jin denies ownership of the funds, claiming they belong to his clients, and asserts he operates nodes for in-house insights [3][4] - The investigation reveals Jin's significant trading activities, including selling over 35,000 BTC for ETH and opening a $735 million BTC short position [3][5] Group 1: Background on Garrett Jin and BitForex - Garrett Jin served as CEO of BitForex from 2017 to 2020, during which the exchange faced accusations of falsifying trading volumes and operating without registration in Japan [2] - BitForex froze withdrawals in February 2024 after approximately $57 million was withdrawn from hot wallets, coinciding with the resignation of CEO Jason Luo [2] Group 2: Whale Activity and Investigative Findings - The whale sold over $4.23 billion in BTC to acquire ETH and opened a $735 million BTC short position on Hyperliquid, strategically timed before a market crash [3][4] - Jin currently holds 46,295 BTC, valued at approximately $5.19 billion, across eight wallet addresses [4] - The investigation traced wallet addresses back to Jin through ENS domains, linking funds withdrawn from exchanges to his tenure at Huobi and the BitForex collapse [1][6] Group 3: Staking and Trading Operations - Jin's trading involved a series of BTC wallets that received over 570,000 ETH, which were deposited into Ethereum's Beacon Deposit Contract for staking through his company, XHash [5] - An ETH staking contract linked to Jin's address was initially funded by an address on Binance Smart Chain, with the first interaction involving a deposit of 32 ETH [6] - Analysis of the wallet that opened the $735 million BTC short position revealed it received funds from an address that deposited $4.1 million in USDC to a Binance deposit address shortly before [7]