TL;DR:
The decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem witnessed one of the most drastic individual collapses of the year. Pseudonymous trader Jeffrey Huang, better known as Machi Big Brother, saw his fortune evaporate after several aggressive liquidations on the perpetual exchange Hyperliquid.
On-chain records indicate that Huang maintained massive long positions in Ethereum and other assets during the last quarter of 2025 and early 2026. Despite having reached a latent profit exceeding $44 million, market volatility and the use of extreme leverage—ranging between 25x and 40x—ultimately annihilated his operating capital.
Huang’s strategy, characterized by high-risk exposure, led him to register more than 335 liquidations in total. There were 262 forced closures in January 2026 alone, a frequency that caused him to be recognized in the crypto community as the “Liquidation King.” Among his largest drawdowns, a single liquidation of nearly $30 million in an Ethereum long stands out.
However, his track record was not without momentary successes. In June 2025, he managed to transform deposits of $6 million into gains of $2 million in just one week through trades in HYPE. Nevertheless, these victories were eclipsed by the trader’s inability to manage risk during trend reversals, leaving his current balance at critical levels.
In summary, the case of Machi Big Brother serves as a warning about the dangers of replicating whale strategies without robust capital management. The transition from a million-dollar gain to a realized loss of $75 million underscores the fragility of highly leveraged positions in volatile markets.
