James Wynn has deposited 20k USDC in donations into his Hyperliquid account

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Hyperliquid trader, James Wynn, has deposited 20,460 USDC in donations into his Hyperliquid account after finally being fully liquidated just one day earlier. He asked for donations on his X account to his public address to “fight the market making cabal”, which he believed was responsible for his liquidations. His repeated losing trades have seen him roundtrip more than $100M over the last 10 days. The deposit has lowered his liquidation price by 0.021% or $22 to $103,610.

The trader's claim of a "market making cabal" touches upon a common point of contention in speculative trading circles. In any healthy market, market makers play a vital role by providing liquidity, constantly placing both buy and sell orders to ensure traders can easily enter and exit positions. However, traders who face significant losses, particularly on high-leverage positions, sometimes allege that large, coordinated entities manipulate prices to intentionally trigger stop-loss orders and liquidations. While market makers are essential for market function, the less regulated nature of some crypto platforms can fuel suspicions about predatory trading practices.

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The term "liquidation" is central to the high-stakes world of leveraged trading. When a trader opens a leveraged position, they put up an initial amount of collateral, known as margin. If the market moves against their position, their losses eat into this margin. If the losses become so great that the margin is nearly depleted, the exchange automatically and forcefully closes the position to prevent the trader's account from going into a negative balance. This forced closure is a liquidation. The "liquidation price" is the exact price point at which this event is triggered, a threshold that traders watch with extreme anxiety.

Prior to asking for donations, he unstaked all of his 126,116 HYPE tokens, worth $4.12M at the time, selling them for USDC to open his new longs on BTC. In true James Wynn fashion, his 944 BTC long position is already down $401K or almost 16% down. His position is currently less than 1.8% away from liquidation.