On January 20, 2026, at 8:00 AM UTC+8, a massive contract gamble involving 25x leverage and up to 2,200 ETH quickly turned into an on-chain "public execution" within just a few hours. Data from on-chain analysis platforms revealed that this high-leverage long position, nominally valued at approximately $6.67 million, was forcibly liquidated in batches by the platform as the ETH price fell back to around $2,991.43. This triggered a total of 5 liquidations, resulting in cumulative losses of about $24.18 million. During the same period, the total liquidation scale across the entire contract market surged to approximately $461 million, with the liquidation amount for ETH contracts around $177 million, accounting for about 38%. This well-known address's liquidation event thus became more than just an individual tragedy; it served as a mirror reflecting the concentrated release of risks in the entire high-leverage crypto market, ringing alarm bells for all participants about the coexistence of leverage and extreme volatility.

The Complete Picture of the 25x Gamble Out of Control

In this widely discussed event, the on-chain address labeled "Brother Ma Ji" (Huang Licheng) chose to use 25x high leverage on a contract platform to establish a large long position of 2,200 ETH. According to tracking by on-chain analysis accounts like Lookonchain, at that time, the nominal scale of this position was approximately $6.67 million, typical of a whale-level high-leverage bet. With the continuous update of on-chain data, information regarding the address's margin transfers, position adjustments, and risk rate changes was recorded, allowing for the reconstruction of this large position's structure afterward: high leverage, long direction, concentrated on a single asset, and lacking obvious hedging traces. According to monitoring data disclosed by Lookonchain, the liquidation price of this 25x leveraged long position was locked around $2,991.43, and during the heightened market volatility on January 20, the ETH price repeatedly approached and fell below this level, triggering the platform's risk control engine to liquidate in batches. Public information shows that the entire position experienced five liquidations, each a passive reduction in position due to a sharp price drop, until the position was nearly wiped out. Looking back at the numbers, the huge gap between the approximately $6.67 million nominal position and the approximately $24.18 million cumulative loss starkly illustrates the amplifying effect of leverage—under high leverage configurations, a continuous downturn in a single direction can magnify losses several times in a short period. It is important to emphasize that the currently available on-chain data mainly focuses on this ETH high-leverage long position itself, and information regarding whether there are other HYPE or non-ETH positions, or whether there are off-exchange hedging structures, has not been fully disclosed through reliable channels. Similarly, the exact timestamps and detailed candlestick trends corresponding to each liquidation cannot be completely reconstructed with the existing information. Based on these gaps, we can only narrate within the boundaries of on-chain records and public data that have been corroborated by multiple parties, avoiding any inferences about unknown position structures and risk exposures.

From Individual Liquidation to a Bloodbath Across the Network on the Same Night

If we widen the perspective from the individual whale's paper loss to the entire derivatives market, the scale of the liquidation storm on January 20 becomes clearer. Data platform CoinAnk reported that the total liquidation scale across the entire contract market on that day was approximately $461 million, of which the liquidation amount related to ETH long and short positions was about $177 million, accounting for approximately 38%. This means that Brother Ma Ji's high-leverage long position was merely a small ripple in the wave of leverage liquidation sweeping across the entire market, with thousands of accounts being forced to liquidate during the same time frame. On the same trading day, the overall sentiment in global risk assets also cooled. In traditional markets, the S&P 500 index fell by about 1% that day; this seemingly mild adjustment, against the backdrop of a long-accumulated narrative of "high valuation + high leverage," intensified the tendency for capital to seek safety. The decline in risk appetite was not only reflected in the red numbers of U.S. stocks but was also transmitted through liquidity withdrawal and risk exposure compression to crypto assets, including ETH. When mainstream stock indices and crypto assets faced pressure simultaneously, and traders encountered margin pressures across multiple markets, those high-leverage crypto positions, which trade 24/7 and experience more severe price fluctuations, naturally became the first to be systematically liquidated. Viewing the individual whale's liquidation within this macro framework makes it easier to understand: this was not an isolated incident but rather the collective cost paid by high-leverage positions during a cross-market risk appetite retreat cycle, simply because the on-chain label and trading volume placed it in the spotlight.

The Sweetness and Poison of Leverage

The existence of an extreme position involving a 25x leverage bet on 2,200 ETH is itself a reflection of the unique temptation mechanisms in the crypto derivatives market. For experienced traders with substantial capital, high leverage represents extremely high capital efficiency: as the market moves in a favorable direction, every small price increase can be magnified into multiple times the profit, recording astonishing floating profits in a short period. This experience can create the illusion that "heavy positions don't lose, light positions aren't appealing." In Brother Ma Ji's operation, using 25x leverage to establish a long position of over 2,000 ETH was clearly a bet that ETH would continue its upward trend, attempting to amplify short- to medium-term gains and achieve returns far exceeding those of spot holdings. In contrast to this sweet expectation is the equally magnified risk: under a 25x leverage structure, even a single-digit percentage pullback in price can erode most of the margin, and once the decline approaches the margin's upper limit, the system will activate the liquidation mechanism, unhesitatingly cutting the position. In such an environment, prices do not need to experience a so-called "black swan"; ordinary levels of volatility are sufficient to trigger liquidation. Risk does not only begin when the market collapses but is already embedded from the moment the leverage multiple is set. In contrast, traditional financial market leverage tools are often wrapped in more stringent risk management systems: limited trading hours, margin call notifications, risk threshold management, and multi-layer regulatory reviews all work together to reduce the probability of "clearing accounts overnight." In the world of crypto derivatives, 24/7 trading combined with severe price fluctuations makes "waking up to find your position cleared by the system" a real possibility. For ordinary investors, leverage in such an environment is not just a neutral tool but a "magnifier" that can easily be abused under the influence of FOMO emotions, celebrity performances, and social media narratives. When stories of well-known addresses using high leverage to gamble are continuously circulated, the myths of profits and screenshots of doubling are often amplified, while the cold, hard risk parameters such as "liquidation lines," "margin ratios," and "extreme market contingency plans" are either selectively ignored or never truly calculated by many.

The On-Chain Transparent Gaze and Amplification Effect

The rapid spread of this high-leverage liquidation after January 20 was facilitated by real-time tracking from on-chain analysis accounts. Monitoring tools like Lookonchain continuously scan the fund flows, collateral behaviors, and contract interactions of tagged addresses, capturing key information such as "25x leverage, long position, 2,200 ETH" from the moment the position was established. As the price approached the liquidation line, these accounts issued warning tweets on social media, bringing numbers like "liquidation price $2,991.43" and "position size approximately $6.67 million" to the public's attention. The subsequent liquidation process was also recorded on-chain, transforming into shareable tags like "5 liquidations have occurred" and "cumulative losses of approximately $24.18 million." As more addresses were tagged with celebrity or institutional labels, the actions of celebrities and whales on-chain were given interpretive weight beyond the transactions themselves. A large position increase might be seen as a "bullish signal," while a liquidation could be interpreted as a "judgment error" or even a "contrarian indicator." Public opinion, in secondary interpretations and recreations, often strays far from the original trading motives. On-chain transparency presents a complex duality in this process: on one hand, it indeed provides ordinary investors with a rare risk education sample—people can see from public data how high leverage amplifies profits and losses on real accounts, prompting them to reflect on their position management; on the other hand, when specific addresses are tied to real individuals, collective emotions are more likely to form a vortex of amplification or even ridicule around events like liquidations. It is important to note that emotional judgments like "the market continues to ridicule" fundamentally rely on verifiable social media interaction data or on-chain behavioral samples, rather than hastily concluding based on individual screenshots and second-hand accounts. In the absence of systematic public sentiment quantification, amplifying individual emotions into "the attitude of the entire network," just as inferring trader intentions without a complete view of positions, is an over-interpretation that should be deliberately avoided.

Systemic Concerns Behind High-Leverage Liquidations

Extending from the liquidation of a single address reveals a more complex systemic structure casting shadows over this event. Any large-scale liquidation is intertwined with the exchange matching system, liquidation engine, funding rate mechanisms, and oracle price sources: the speed at which oracle prices react during severe volatility directly determines the sensitivity of margin calculations; changes in funding rates affect the holding costs for both long and short positions, thereby altering the willingness to use leverage; when and how the liquidation engine sells off liquidated positions also impacts spot and perpetual contract prices. These micro-level settings collectively shape the "liquidation path" during extreme market conditions. In terms of concentration of holdings, industry research shows that Bitmine currently holds approximately 4.2 million ETH, accounting for about 3.5% of the circulating supply; any position adjustments, staking actions, or even internal risk control changes by such super holders can be amplified in the market on an emotional level. Although Brother Ma Ji's liquidation volume is not on the same scale as Bitmine's concentrated holdings, both outline a reality: in a market where the holding structure is not completely dispersed, risk events from large accounts naturally amplify the psychological impact on ordinary investors. Concurrently, around January 20, events like TenX Protocols' large purchase of approximately 5.5 million XTZ also provide another clue to fund flows: some capital, after withdrawing from mainstream assets and high-leverage positions, did not simply exit but rapidly migrated between different tokens and new narratives. This rhythm of "rotation from high-leverage ETH to new altcoin stories" complicates the overall distribution of leverage and liquidity in the market. Should the macro environment deteriorate again, or if oracles and liquidation parameters face pressure tests across multiple platforms simultaneously, the high-leverage crypto market still harbors systemic concerns of being triggered by concentration, leading to an instantaneous liquidity vacuum. The story of individual liquidations, in a sense, merely visualizes the risks that were originally lurking behind the structure in a highly impactful way.

Lessons and Self-Reflection Before the Next Round of Gambling

Returning to the starting point, the event of the 25x leveraged ETH long position being liquidated in batches on January 20, resulting in cumulative losses of approximately $24.18 million, serves as an intuitive and brutal reminder for individual risk management and the overall market's leverage levels. For individual investors, it reaffirms that under high leverage structures, the cost of "being wrong once in direction" is often not just a little less profit, but enough to give back multiple cycles of accumulated gains. For the market as a whole, when the total liquidation scale across the entire network reached $461 million on the same day, with ETH liquidations amounting to about $177 million, any optimistic narrative about "sustainable increases in leverage utilization" must confront the reality curve's counter-question. Meanwhile, this event also reminds us that in an age of information overload, it is essential to deliberately distinguish between verifiable on-chain facts and story versions amplified through second-hand transmission. Liquidation prices, number of liquidations, and position sizes all have clear data sources; however, emotional qualitative statements about "historical liquidation counts," "platform special modes," or "market collective ridicule," if lacking authoritative disclosure and systematic data support, should not be easily incorporated into formal narratives. Looking ahead, as global regulatory frameworks gradually tighten and crypto financial instruments continue to mature, the forms, access thresholds, and risk control logic of leveraged products are likely to evolve continuously. On-chain transparency may also find a new balance with more refined privacy protections and tiered disclosure mechanisms. Future high leverage may be more constrained within qualified investor or regulated structured products, rather than allowing emotions and stories to spread boundlessly in a no-threshold market. Before the next extreme market event truly arrives, every participant probably needs to answer a question: after witnessing a 25x gamble being live-streamed on-chain and seeing tens of millions of dollars evaporate overnight, are you really willing to press the same leverage multiple for the next impulse, or will you reset your own risk boundaries?

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