Black Swan Trader? Who is the mysterious whale Garrett Jin?

Original Author: @eyeonchains, On-chain Analyst

Original Translation: angelilu, Foresight News

Linguistic Note: The discussion about the Black Swan price crash event on 10/11 is still ongoing. The community continues to question the identity of the whale who accurately shorted over $1.1 billion before the event. On-chain detective analysis suggests that the address in question likely belongs to former BitForex CEO Garrett Jin. Today at noon, Garrett Jin posted three consecutive tweets responding for the first time to market rumors, clarifying that he has no association with the Trump family or "Little Trump," and emphasizing that his previous actions were not insider trading. He also stated that the funds used were not personal but belonged to his clients. The following is the original content:

Yesterday, the market witnessed a Black Swan event, marking the largest liquidation day in crypto history. However, someone was able to accurately short in advance, opening a short position of over $1.1 billion and making over $80 million in profits within 24 hours. Was this a prediction or insider information? The real identity of the whale has captured the market's attention.

On-chain detective Eye's thread revealed the identity of this whale. To cut to the chase, Eye believes the whale's true identity is an individual named Garrett Bullish with a diverse background. His crypto-related experiences include serving as the COO at Huobi (HTX), being the CEO of BitForex during a trading scandal, and founding multiple crypto projects. Meanwhile, the source of his massive funds also seems to have raised suspicions.

In response to this event, Zhao Changpeng once retweeted the post hoping someone could cross-confirm. Lookonchain stated that JackYi, the founder of Liquid Capital, might have knowledge as the wallet 0x52d3 that sent ETH to pay for Gas also transferred 1.31 million USDC to Trend Research's Binance deposit address.

On-chain detective ZachXBT, a credible figure in the on-chain investigation field, as of his last post, expressed doubt regarding this investigation, stating, "You clearly stated in the post that the Bitcoin whale is Garrett Jin, and now you are telling me in the reply that these are definitely coming from multiple entities' BTC."

Currently, the authenticity of this investigation cannot be confirmed. Below is Eye's full analysis text (with slight edits during translation), and Foresight News will continue to monitor further developments.

Huge Fund Flow Draws Attention

An investigation into the mysterious Hyperliquid/Hyperunit whale identity has revealed that the whale holds over 100,000 bitcoins. Recently, they sold over $4.23 billion worth of bitcoin to purchase Ethereum and executed a $735 million bitcoin short order on the same platform.

During August to September, this whale utilized a series of bitcoin wallets through Hyperliquid/Hyperunit's spot and perpetual contracts to sell over 35,000 bitcoins in exchange for Ethereum. Simultaneously, multiple Ethereum addresses received over 570,000 ETH, all of which were later deposited into the same Beacon Chain deposit contract for staking.

Identity Clues Gradually Emerge

By analyzing the whale address that opened the $735 million bitcoin short, blockchain sleuth Eye noticed it received transaction fees from a specific wallet. Tracking these transactions revealed a fund flow associated with an address named "ereignis.eth."

Further investigation showed that "ereignis.eth" also owns another ENS name: "garrettjin.eth," which resolves to Twitter user @GarrettBullish.

Garrett Jin's Background

Garrett Jin graduated from Boston University in 2008 with a degree in Economics and began his career at the China Construction Bank. In 2012, he founded Da Yo Trading (HK) and later served as the COO at Huobi (HTX) until 2015. He then relocated to Frankfurt, co-founded a healthcare platform, and departed from that position in 2017.

From 2017 to 2020, he was the CEO of @bitforexcom. The exchange later became embroiled in scandal, accused of faking trading volume, and experienced a private key leak in early 2024 where around $57 million was siphoned off. The exchange subsequently received a fraud warning from the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission, eventually shutting down, leaving many users' assets lost.

Project History and Funding Source

During the Bitforex collapse, Garrett founded WaveLabs VC in 2020 and launched multiple projects, including TanglePay, IotaBee, and GroupFi. The ENS name "ereignis.eth" (meaning "event" in German) further confirmed his involvement in these large-scale operations.

An investigation revealed that the funds of this Hyperliquid/Hyperunit whale primarily came from Bitcoin withdrawn from exchanges such as HTX and OKX several years ago, a pattern suspiciously linked to his experience at Huobi and the disappearance of funds in the Bitforex scam.

Current Status

Garrett currently holds 46,295 Bitcoins (worth approximately $5.19 billion). Additionally, he is the founder of XHash_com, a non-custodial Ethereum staking platform that may be used to introduce suspicious funds.

Notably, after the release of the related investigation, Garrett promptly removed XHash_com from his profile, changed his profile picture, and adjusted his Telegram privacy settings to conceal previously public photos and phone numbers. On-chain detective Eye stated, "It appears he does have something to hide."

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