Top 10 Lessons Learned from the Crypto Market in 2025: From Get Liquidated in Contracts to Trusting 'Customer Service', Whales Paid Hundreds of Millions of Dollars in 'Tuition'.

Author: angelilu, Foresight News

The crypto market in 2025 resembles a high-speed express train racing forward. Looking back from the platform, people can only see the survivors inside the windows toasting in celebration, while few notice the passengers who have been thrown off the tracks.

This year, we have witnessed not only the madness of gamblers in the contract market but also the brutal infiltration of the Web3 dark forest principle into the physical world. The stories of sudden wealth are similar, but the ways of going to zero are all kinds of bizarre. We have restored the losing records of several typical figures in 2025—among them are billionaires, tech geeks, legendary gamblers, and even ordinary people who just want to save money.

Trading Chapter

Machi Big Brother becomes the on-chain “Clearing Champion”

• Identity: Renowned singer, entrepreneur, NFT whale
• Loss: Cleared 71 times in just 19 days before November; daily loss of 21.28 million USD

Huang Licheng's PnL profit and loss curve chart, source: Hyperbot

Rewind the clock three months back, and Brother Ma Ji was still a winner in the Hyperliquid ecosystem. He heavily invested in HYPE, XPL, and ETH, with a paper profit that once exceeded 44 million dollars. By the end of September and early October, the price of XPL plummeted (with a maximum drawdown of 46%), and HYPE also experienced a significant correction. He did not take profits in time, leading to a rapid expansion of losses in a single asset to over 8.7 million dollars.

With the market crash on “10·11”, Brother Ma Ji officially turned to a loss. However, this shift to a loss is not the end for Brother Ma Ji, but rather the starting point for his unlimited opening of positions. He attempts to recover his losses by going long on ETH with high leverage. He holds approximately 7,000 to 30,000 ETH long positions (with leverage often at 20x to 25x), but each time ETH experiences a sharp drop, it triggers his liquidation line.

Brother Maji was forcibly liquidated 71 times in just 19 short days from November 1 to 19. This means that during nearly three weeks, he experienced an average of nearly 4 liquidations per day, earning the title of “Liquidation Champion” on-chain. However, he kept depositing, getting liquidated, depositing again, and getting liquidated again. As of the time of writing, his total loss on perpetual contracts on Hyperliquid has reached $21.2 million. From a profit of $45.66 million to a loss of $21.2 million, he has experienced an asset drawdown of over $66 million in less than 3 months. Despite a brief recovery, he is still in a state of deep losses and frequent margin calls.

Unlike ordinary people, Brother Maji, Huang Licheng, has also worn the halo of a superstar. In the 1990s, he was the soul of Taiwan's L.A. Boyz and a pioneering idol who brought authentic American hip-hop into the Mandarin music scene. This isn't the first time Brother Maji has played the role of the “retail investor's savior.” Everyone must remember the NFT battlefield of 2023. In order to compete for BLUR's airdrop points, he once crazily boosted his trading volume in this bottomless pit. The outcome was tragic: he did receive airdrop tokens worth 1.9 million USD, but at the cost of losing 12,000 ETH (worth 25 million USD at the time).

James Wynn's Billion-Dollar Bet

• Identity: James Wynn
• Loss: Opened 1.25 billion USD Bitcoin long positions, lost 100 million USD in a week.

If Brother Maji is the “pastime of the rich,” then James Wynn's story is like a mortal who flew too high and ultimately had his wings melted by the sun.

In the realm of contract trading, James Wynn's legend began with PEPE but exploded on the battlefield of Hyperliquid's contracts. In March 2025, James Wynn stormed into Hyperliquid for contract trading with a staggering $25 million earned from PEPE. This $25 million fortune was made from a mere $7,600 principal through heavy betting on the meme coin PEPE since 2023. However, the gains from spot trading were not enough for him. During the period from March to April, he made another $25 million by aggressively going long on PEPE and ETH, turning him into a super whale with $50 million in hand.

In May 2025, James Wynn turned his attention to Bitcoin, as BTC was approaching its historical high of $110,000. At that time, James Wynn made a significant move on-chain: he took a massive long position with a notional value of $1.25 billion, using 40x leverage, near the historical peak of around $108,000. What does this number mean? His on-chain position exceeded the treasury reserves of many small countries. He attempted to leverage this $1.25 billion to pry open the door to becoming the “world's richest person.”

But Bitcoin's subsequent sharp pullback broke through the $105,000 threshold, becoming a nightmare for James Wynn. In just a week, his invaluable contract melted away like an iceberg in the sunlight. Ultimately, he had to cut his losses, incurring nearly $100 million in losses. Overnight, the astronomical figure he earned through PEPE was almost entirely returned to the market. After the crash, he left a nihilistic quote on Twitter: “Money isn't real.”

Unwilling to accept defeat, James Wynn attempted to “recoup” in November, but he misjudged the direction—he bet that Bitcoin would drop below $92,000, and thus went all-in on a short position with his remaining funds. Data recorded his final madness: in just two months, he was forcibly liquidated 45 times; on the worst day, he experienced 12 consecutive liquidations within 12 hours. Once a “Meme coin prophet,” he has now become a gambler screaming at the candlestick chart. He vowed on social media: “I will sell all my stablecoins to short. Either I make billions or go completely bankrupt.”

Spot Whale Losses $125 Million “Cut Losses” to Exit

• Identity: Whale shorting 66,000 ETH with borrowed coins
• Loss: Single position floating loss of 125 million USD; transferred 140 million USD to Binance to crash the market within 8 hours.

In addition to contracts, whales holding spot assets will also face huge losses. The “whale that shorted 66,000 ETH using borrowed coins” was once a hunter in the market, skilled at utilizing lending protocols for large-scale short arbitrage. But this time, the hunter has become the prey.

Earning 24 million dollars by shorting through borrowing coins did not satisfy him; he wanted more – he wanted to “eat both long and short.” On November 5, after closing his short positions, he immediately reversed his stance and began frantically bottom-fishing. In just 9 days, by November 14, he transferred a staggering 1.187 billion dollars to Binance, withdrawing 422,000 ETH, and his average position price was raised to 3,413 dollars. For this gamble, he even utilized up to 485 million dollars in on-chain leverage loans.

The market gave this greedy person a harsh slap in the face. As the price of ETH continued to decline, breaking below the $3000 mark, his “bottom fishing” turned into a “deep trap.” On-chain data recorded his most desperate moments: during the worst phase in November, his massive long position faced an unrealized loss of up to $133 million. The $24.48 million profit he painstakingly earned from shorting was instantly swallowed by this enormous loss, and he lost a total of $100 million in principal. Once a “short-selling warrior,” he has now turned into a “leveraged gambler” burdened with $480 million in debt, thanks to borrowed money.

On November 16, the giant whale started a major retreat, redeeming 177,000 ETH from Aave and began to deposit 44,000 ETH (worth 140 million USD) to Binance in batches, incurring a real loss of 125 million USD.

The Whale in the 'Chinese Meme'

• Identity: High Point Heavy Investment Chinese Meme Whales
• Loss: Cumulative loss of 3.598 million USD (single currency loss of 2.49 million)

In addition to stubbornly holding ETH, there are many people who have suffered losses from stubbornly holding Memes.

In October 2025, when the market's focus shifts between AI and mainstream coins, this giant whale finds itself trapped in the narrative maze of “Chinese Meme.”

He is like a dedicated stamp collector, spending 4.49 million dollars to crazily build a position in a series of Chinese Meme tokens on the BSC chain: “Binance Life”, “Customer Service Xiao He”, and “Haqimi”. He heavily invested in “Binance Life” at an average price of 0.3485 dollars, and kept increasing his position to 4.08 million dollars, becoming the 7th largest individual holder of that token. The market gave him countless opportunities to escape, but he chose to be a “diamond hand”.

After holding the position for 8 days, his Meme assets shrank by 56.5%, with a floating loss exceeding 3 million dollars. Except for “Hakimi,” the entire line collapsed, but he did not liquidate; instead, he continued to chase the rising prices. Ultimately, in early November, his faith collapsed under the gravity of the K-line returning to zero. He liquidated all his tokens in one go within 50 minutes. The outcome was devastating: a cumulative loss of 3.598 million dollars. Among them, just the token “Binance Life” alone caused him a loss of 2.49 million dollars.

This whale learned a lesson for 3.6 million dollars: in the world of Memes, nothing is more terrifying than liquidity drying up. Once the trend turns bad, every second is a window to escape, and holding on will only lead to zero.

A Certain “Unknown Hacker”'s “Karma”

• Identity: On-chain hacker / Top “reverse indicator”
• Loss: The trading loss in October alone reached 8.88 million USD.

This may be the most “refreshing” loss story of 2025. We usually think of hackers as cold, rational predators, but this “unknown hacker” has proven through his actions that he only understands code and not candlestick charts.

In March and August of this year, he used technical means to steal a huge amount of money and should have gone into hiding to enjoy his wealth. However, he made a fatal mistake—he tried to use the stolen money to trade cryptocurrencies. It turns out that the market manipulators in the crypto market are more ruthless than hackers.

On ETH, he precisely “buy low and sell high.” At the beginning of October, he heavily invested in 8,637 ETH at an average price of $4,400 (total value of about $38.01 million). After holding for only 10 days, he encountered the flash crash on “10·11.” In panic, not only did he fail to hold on, but he also cleared out at the floor price of $3,778, resulting in a loss of $5.37 million for that single trade.

In mid-October, he panicked and sold at a loss during a downturn, losing 3.24 million dollars. The most ridiculous scene occurred an hour after he sold—seeing the market rebound, he couldn't help but buy back over 2,000 ETH at a higher price. As a result, the market fell again, and he had to sell at a loss once more. As of October 18, due to frequent buying high and selling low in just half a month, he had accumulated losses of 8.88 million dollars.

This hacker tells us from personal experience: stealing money requires skill, but protecting wealth requires character. In the face of volatile candlestick charts, even hackers are just tender green chives.

Attack Chapter

User Babur, expired “multisig” and expensive “double-click”

• Identity: On-chain Whale
• Loss: Approximately 27 million USD (some funds have been laundered into Tornado Cash)

If some losses are due to overly complex technology, then Babur's 27 million dollars are lost due to “habits being too bad.”

At the end of December 2025, Slow Fog founder Yu Xian and CertiK revealed this case one after the other. The addresses of the giant whale Babur on Solana and Ethereum were raided, with losses reaching as high as $27 million. What is regrettable is that Babur actually had a certain level of security awareness—he used the industry benchmark Safe multisig wallet to safeguard his assets.

In theory, a multi-signature wallet requires multiple private key signatures to make a transaction, which provides extremely high security. However, an investigation revealed a fatal low-level error: Babur actually stored the two private keys required for the multi-signature on the same computer. It's like buying the world's most secure safe (multi-signature) that requires two keys to open, but you hang both keys on the handle of the safe.

After he double-clicked a malicious file (“poisoning”) on the computer, the virus easily took away all the private keys. Yu Xian commented on this: “Real poisoning attacks are probably very simple, with no advanced techniques; many threats are also old hat.”

Afterwards, CertiK detected that hackers had transferred 4,250 ETH (approximately $14 million) to Tornado Cash for mixing. Babur learned a very simple lesson for $27 million: if the private key is not physically isolated, even the most advanced multi-signature is just a layer of window paper.

Suji Yan, the “11 Minutes That Disappeared” at the Birthday Party

• Identity: Founder of Mask Network
• Loss: 4 million USD (a nightmare on my 29th birthday)

On February 27, 2025, what should have been a joyful moment for Mask Network founder Suji Yan to celebrate his 29th birthday turned into a nightmarish scenario reminiscent of Rashomon. This was not a sophisticated code attack from the dark web, but rather a chilling crisis involving 'people around him.' According to Suji's account, he was celebrating his birthday with a dozen friends at a private party. It was only because he took a trip to the restroom and his phone was out of sight for a few minutes that the gears of fate began to turn.

On-chain data shows that in the subsequent 11 minutes, the hacker calmly transferred over 4 million dollars in assets from his public wallet through manual operations. Yushen, the founder of Slow Mist, confirmed that these funds were quickly exchanged for ETH and dispersed to 7 addresses.

“The operation was manual and lasted for over 11 minutes.” This means that behind the laughter of toasting drinks, someone (or lurking malware) took advantage of this brief gap to complete the heist right under his nose. Suji admitted, “I trust my friends, but this is a nightmare for anyone.” This incident became one of the coldest lessons of Web3 in 2025: never store the private keys of hot wallets holding significant assets on a mobile phone that you carry around for socializing and taking photos.

Sam Altman's Ex-Boyfriend's Night of Terror

• Identity: Well-known tech investor, ex-boyfriend of Sam Altman
• Loss: 11 million USD + personal injury

If losing money on-chain is “a way to avert disaster”, then Lachy Groom's experience completely shatters the illusion that “decentralized assets are safer”. On a Saturday in November, a robber disguised as a delivery person tricked his way into opening the door of his mansion in San Francisco. Lachy not only faced armed kidnapping but was also bound with tape and beaten. For a duration of 90 minutes, the robber forced him to reveal his password and emptied his account of $11 million worth of crypto assets. This case represents the “dimensionality reduction attack” of increasingly prevalent Web3 crime: hackers no longer need to break the code, they just need to break down your front door.

Recommended reading: “Putting aside the 'former Altman', how crazy is Lachy Groom's extraordinary life”

According to a report by Bloomberg, over the past three years, there has been a surge in “wrench attacks” targeting cryptocurrency holders. A database maintained by Jameson Lopp, co-founder of cryptocurrency security company Casa, shows that there have been approximately 60 documented instances of such attacks globally this year, resulting in losses of tens of millions of dollars.

Douyin buyers, cold wallets “poisoned” by the supply chain

• Identity: Retail Investor
• Loss: 50 million RMB (approximately 7.08 million USD)

This is a typical case of “cognitive harvesting.” An investor, in pursuit of so-called absolute safety, decided to use a hardware cold wallet to store assets. But he made a fatal mistake: he bought a “discounted” cold wallet on Douyin.

What he didn't know was that this wallet had already been tampered with before it even left the factory, and the private key had long been leaked. When he confidently deposited 50 million RMB, he was actually sending the money directly to the hacker. A few hours later, the assets were laundered clean through Huione. This expensive lesson teaches us that the biggest security vulnerability often lies in the human nature of being greedy for bargains.

Trusting the 'official customer service' resulted in a loss of 91.4 million dollars for the whale

• Identity: A “docile” whale with $300 million in Bitcoin
• Loss: 783 BTC (worth approximately 91.4 million USD at the time)

On August 19, 2025, a whale encountered a “social engineering attack”. He did not click on any links or download any viruses; he just answered a phone call. On the other end was a calm and professional “senior engineer from the hardware wallet official team,” who informed him that there was a critical vulnerability in his device that required immediate cooperation for a “firmware upgrade.” Under an hour of “guidance” during the call, this whale completely let his guard down and personally handed over 783 bitcoins worth approximately $91.4 million. After the malicious transfer occurred, the funds began to undergo a typical money laundering process, being deposited multiple times into Wasabi Wallet, a privacy tool commonly used for obfuscating tracking.

Similarly, in 2024 there was a similar case, where the amount involved was larger, and the victims lost approximately 300 million dollars worth of Bitcoin.

survivor bias

These 10 names, with hundreds of millions of dollars in tuition, show us the full picture of the Web3 dark forest: there are no absolute winners here, hackers steal the code but lose to the big players in the secondary market; there is no absolute security, Babur's technical defenses cannot withstand the “poisoning” of the physical world; there are also no absolute fortresses, Lachy's mansion cannot block the guns of robbers, and whales that trust the “official customer service” cannot resist the blind obedience deep within human nature.

Everyone on this list has been a standout or a fortunate individual in their respective fields. If there is a survival rule that must be remembered for 2025, it may not be 'how to get rich quickly', but rather 'how to survive'.

In the cryptocurrency market, surviving is far more important than how much you earn. After all, only those who survive are qualified to tell the story of next year.