Boxing champion Andrew Tate's "zero" story after losing $720,000 in Hyperliquid.

Original author: Gino Matos

Original translation by Luffy, Foresight News

Former world boxing champion and billionaire Andrew Tate deposited $727,000 into the cryptocurrency exchange Hyperliquid over the past year without making any withdrawals. After a series of highly leveraged liquidations, his account was wiped out on November 18, and all his funds vanished.

According to Arkham's on-chain ledger records, Tate earned approximately $75,000 in referral commissions by inviting other traders to join the platform, which he then reinvested in his trading positions, ultimately leading to his own liquidation.

This incident serves as a prime example of how high leverage, low win rates, and the habit of doubling down can turn a six-figure sum into a public farce, especially when traders publicly share every trade on social media in real time.

Tate's trading activity on Hyperliquid lasted for nearly a year, with the first recorded forced liquidation occurring on December 19, 2024. Arkham's trading history review shows that on that day, his long positions in multiple cryptocurrencies, including BTC, ETH, SOL, LINK, HYPE, and PENGU, were simultaneously liquidated.

The trading pattern that would emerge over the next 11 months was already beginning to take shape: high leverage was used when making directional bets on cryptocurrencies, with almost no risk management, and a tendency to re-enter losing trades with even higher leverage rather than reduce risk exposure.

Ethereum high-stakes gamble in June

The most public-covering crash occurred on June 10. Tate posted that he had gone long on Ethereum at around $2,515.90 with 25x leverage, boasting about the size of the trade and his unwavering confidence.

A few hours later, the position was liquidated and the related post was deleted.

The following day, on-chain analytics platform Lookonchain released a dashboard screenshot linking a Hyperliquid tracking address to Tate. The data showed that he had made a total of 76 transactions, with a win rate of only 35.53%, and accumulated losses of approximately $583,000.

Such a low win rate means that Tate needs to make the winning trades significantly outweigh the losses from losing trades in order to break even, but he failed to do so.

Hyperliquid's order book and settlement layer are highly transparent; anyone following the relevant addresses can see every entry trade, every margin call notification, and every settlement. Tate's practice of releasing updates before trade results are available further amplifies the exposure of events.

September and November: The Last Struggle

In September, Tate suffered another significant loss as its long WLFI positions were liquidated, resulting in a loss of approximately $67,500.

Reports at the time indicated that Tate attempted to re-enter the trade at a similar price level, only to incur losses again, a pattern that repeated itself in the final weeks of his account.

By November, his funds had shrunk significantly. On November 14, a 40x leveraged Bitcoin long position collapsed, resulting in a loss of approximately $235,000. Four days later, his account was completely wiped out.

The final liquidation occurred around 7:15 PM ET on November 18th, when Tate's last Bitcoin long position was liquidated at a price close to $90,000.

Arkham's post-trade analysis revealed that Tate deposited a total of $727,000 throughout the entire trading period, withdrew no funds, and exhausted all his remaining balance, including the $75,000 referral bonus.

This recommended return figure is noteworthy: Tate successfully attracted enough traders to join Hyperliquid, thus earning substantial rebates, but he invested these profits in the same type of leveraged positions that had already caused him to lose six figures.

This is not just a matter of failing to preserve capital, but also a failure to recognize the fatal flaws in the trading strategy itself.

According to Lookonchain's summary, Tate experienced a total of 19 liquidations between November 1st and 19th, ranking among the traders with the most liquidations on the Hyperliquid platform that month. During this period, the number of forced liquidations was second only to Machi and James Wynn.

His final trading record covers mainstream cryptocurrencies such as BTC, ETH, and SOL, as well as several niche tokens, with leverage ratios ranging from 10x to 40x for all trades.

The higher the leverage, the smaller the price drop required to trigger a margin call. Margin calls have been particularly frequent this month, given the extreme volatility in the cryptocurrency market.

How high leverage and low win rate devour funds

The mechanism behind Tate account collapse is actually quite simple: high leverage amplifies both gains and losses, and a win rate below 40% means that the number of losing trades will exceed the number of winning trades.

In perpetual contracts, for a 40x leveraged position, only a 2.5% price fluctuation in the opposite direction is sufficient to trigger liquidation.

Tate's positions are often at or above this threshold, meaning that even a slight pullback could lead to forced liquidation.

When he re-enters the market after a forced liquidation with similar or higher leverage, he is essentially repeating the same trade with less capital and the same risk parameters. Over time, this pattern will gradually deplete his capital.

The $75,000 referral bonus exacerbated the problem. Hyperliquid's referral program pays traders a percentage of the trading fees generated by users they invite.

Tate was able to receive the $75,000 because he generated enough trading volume (both his own and that of followers who registered through his referral link) to qualify for the rebate.

However, instead of withdrawing the rebate or using it to reduce leverage, he invested it in positions that had already been liquidated multiple times.

This decision either reflects his firm belief that the next trade will reverse the trend, or it shows that he simply doesn't understand how quickly leverage can devour funds when the win rate remains low.

Why was the incident staged publicly?

Tate's willingness to disclose updates before the trade results are released makes his personal trading account a public ledger.

Most traders who collapse due to high leverage choose to handle things discreetly. Their liquidation records will be reflected in the exchange's aggregated data, but will not be linked to their specific identities.

Tate publishes entry trading information and marks positions, and sometimes deletes evidence after forced liquidation. This pattern will inevitably attract media reports and on-chain tracking.

Platforms like Arkham and Lookonchain have specifically built tools to track this account because they know that each liquidation will generate clicks and comments.

Hyperliquid's transparency makes this tracking effortless. Unlike centralized exchanges, Hyperliquid's account data is not private; its transaction settlements are conducted on-chain, and anyone who knows the address can view the transaction history.

Once Lookonchain associates Tate's public identity with a specific Hyperliquid address, the ledger becomes a publicly watched "contest".

Every margin call, every re-entry, and every final settlement is recorded and archived in real time with a timestamp.

The broader question raised by the Tate incident is: were high-leverage perpetual contract platforms designed to allow retail investors to profit, or to extract funds from overconfident traders?

Hyperliquid offers leverage of up to 50x for certain trading pairs and automatically triggers a margin call when equity falls below the maintenance margin threshold.

For professional traders with strict risk management, these tools can enable capital-efficient strategies; but for traders with low win rates and a habit of doubling down, they are nothing short of "liquidation machines".

The $727,000 collapse of Tate will not change Hyperliquid's fee structure or leverage limits, but it does provide a public case of what happens when high leverage, low win rates, and blind re-entry are combined.

The platform charges transaction fees for every position, every re-entry, and every forced liquidation; the referral program paid Tate $75,000 to attract trading volume, and then recovered the $75,000 through liquidation.

From a business perspective, the system operates in perfect accordance with its original design intent.

For retail traders observing this event, the lessons learned are more about the structural dynamics of leveraged trading than about Tate's specific mistakes.

A 35% win rate can still be viable if position and risk management are done properly; however, it becomes fatal when combined with 25x leverage and the habit of re-entering losing trades with even higher leverage.

The transparency of on-chain settlements means that these dynamics can be observed in real time, which makes individual collapses either public educational cases or public entertainment material.

Tate's account has been wiped out, while Hyperliquid's order book continues to function normally. $727,000 has vanished, referral earnings are gone, and the trading ledger remains publicly accessible.

All that remains is a timestamped record, a stark reminder of how quickly leverage can devour capital when traders refuse to cut their losses.