An onchain investigation by crypto researcher Eye has linked the mysterious Hyperliquid whale, who controls over 100,000 BTC, to Garrett Jin, the former CEO of BitForex, a now-defunct exchange embroiled in a fraud scandal.
In a Saturday post on X, the onchain sleuth noted that the whale’s main wallet, ereignis.eth, was connected to another ENS name, garrettjin.eth, which directly leads to Jin’s verified X (Twitter) account, @GarrettBullish.
“The ENS name ereignis.eth (“event” in German) confirms his link to this wallet, identifying him as the actor behind the large-scale operations on Hyperliquid/Hyperunit,” Eye wrote on X.
The wallet activity also matched Jin’s known business dealings, including transfers to staking contracts and addresses funded by exchanges he had past ties with, such as Huobi (HTX).
Further, the whale’s wallet received and sent funds that traced back to BitForex-related addresses and to Binance deposits used to open massive trades, including a $735 million Bitcoin (BTC) short.
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BitForex accused of fraud
Jin led BitForex from 2017 to 2020. The exchange was later accused of falsifying trading volumes and flagged by Japan’s Financial Services Agency for operating without registration.
In 2024, BitForex lost $57 million from its hot wallets, froze withdrawals and ultimately shut down after its team was detained in China. Hong Kong’s SFC later issued a warning for suspected fraud, and users claimed millions in unrecovered funds.
Following BitForex’s collapse, Jin founded several ventures, including WaveLabs VC (2020), TanglePay (2021), IotaBee (2022) and GroupFi (2023). Most of these projects have since become inactive.
In 2024, he launched XHash.com, a platform for institutional Ethereum staking, which investigators allege may have been used to onboard questionable funds. After the allegations surfaced, Jin reportedly removed XHash from his social media bio, though it remains visible on his Telegram account.
Related: MetaMask, Infinex tap Hyperliquid to challenge CEXs in perps market
Not everyone is convinced
Crypto analyst Quinten François expressed skepticism over the claims linking the Hyperliquid whale to the former BitForex CEO, arguing that the evidence may be too convenient.
“Why would you have an .eth name leading to your X handle in a wallet that directly connects to market manipulation wallets and wallets for other crime?” he wrote on X, adding that such a setup “sounds way too simple to be true.”
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