Key Takeaways
- A whale accrued $7.5M in under 4 days from ZEC and HYPE longs on Hyperliquid.
- ZEC’s 30% surge followed the SEC closing its Zcash Foundation probe, erasing 2026 losses in days.
- The trader’s new 25x ETH long at $38.63M faces automatic liquidation on a roughly 4% adverse price move.
ZEC and HYPE Gains Turn Into a $38.6M Leveraged ETH Gamble
On May 22, a high-conviction trader (called Evaded) generated over $7.5 million in unrealized gains from two positions opened less than ninety-six hours ago. His long on 36,875 ZEC, valued at $24.15 million, and a concurrent long on 287,618 HYPE, valued at $20.94 million, have both moved sharply in his favor as both tokens surged this week.
Rather than closing the trades and cashing in the gains, Evaded immediately redeployed the capital, opening a 25x leveraged long on 18,100 ether ( ETH) worth $38.63 million in notional exposure.
The ZEC leg caught a significant tailwind as the privacy-focused cryptocurrency, known for its shielded transaction technology, surged over 30% to a fresh 2026 high in early May after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) closed its investigation into the Zcash Foundation without recommending enforcement action.
The ruling resolved years of regulatory uncertainty that had weighed on the token and pushed ZEC’s monthly returns past 100%, erasing all of its year-to-date losses in a single session.
Similarly, the HYPE leg rode an equally powerful trend with Hyperliquid’s native token hitting an all-time high near $63 on May 21, lifted by the May 12 launch of a Bitwise HYPE exchange-traded fund (ETF) and by sustained accumulation from wallets linked to venture capital firm a16z.
Doubling Down With A $38.6M Leveraged ETH Bet
The new ETH trade carries 25x leverage, meaning a move of approximately 4% against the position is enough to trigger automatic liquidation. At that ratio, the margin of error is narrow, with a brief flash crash or a sharp ether selloff potentially closing the position before it has time to recover.
A market-wide pullback, the kind that hits ZEC, HYPE, and ETH simultaneously (given their shared leverage and retail exposure), would put pressure on all three positions at once and turn the trade from a showcase of timing to a reminder of what overconfidence at the top can cost.
Bitcoin.com News has tracked numerous large-scale leveraged positions on Hyperliquid through 2026, and its on-chain transparency means every position of this size is visible in real time to anyone monitoring the chain.
