TradeXYZ Mysterious Founder Shoku, A Man Always in Search of Asymmetric Opportunities

On October 13, 2025, TradeXYZ launched. In less than five months, the platform's cumulative trading volume exceeded $100 billion.

Over the weekend when CME was closed, oil traders from around the world came here to bet on the situation in the Middle East. Before the Cerebras IPO, Morgan Stanley traders referenced prices here to predict the opening price.

For a project of this magnitude, by all rights there should have been over a dozen founder interviews, endorsements from several rounds of prominent VCs, and countless valuation rumors flying around. However, TradeXYZ's founding team and core members have remained anonymous from the start and do not accept any interviews.

The only thing we know is that the platform's founder goes by the Twitter ID sershokunin, and people in the crypto community call him Shoku.

Bitcoin OG, NFT Whale

In 2013, Shoku bought Bitcoin for the first time. In the decade-plus that followed, his compounding trajectory was like a dream come true for many: getting in early, holding long-term, and staying ahead of every narrative.

In September 2021, Shoku used 2,000 ETH (approximately $6.63 million) to purchase CryptoPunk #8857. This is one of only 88 Zombie Punks in the entire CryptoPunks collection, and the transaction price ranked fourth in the series' history. On the day he bought the Punk, he posted a twelve-part thread on Twitter explaining why he was willing to pay millions of dollars for a pixelated avatar.

Shoku stated that the creativity of an era does not belong to a single genius, but to the entire "scene." For example, Paris in the 1920s, Soho in the 1960s, and early Y Combinator.

Shoku's judgment was that NFTs were growing into such a scene: artists recommending each other rather than competing, tools and technologies spreading by the day on Discord and YouTube, and secondary markets allowing collectors to see what others are buying in real-time for the first time.

These characteristics had never appeared simultaneously in art history, and when they do, what follows is an entire generation of art movements waiting to be retrospectively defined.

Shoku was wrong. NFTs did not bring about a reflection of an era.

Three months later, the bear market began. Most Punk buyers were trapped at the top, Shoku included. In May 2024, he listed the NFT for sale at 2,200 ETH. To date, the highest bid from a buyer is only 500 ETH.

Shoku probably doesn't care much about that money.

Investment Genius

Buying Bitcoin 13 years ago is not even a standout in Shoku's investment resume. Two brilliant trades he made outside the crypto market have always impressed his peers.

In 2014, Uber was still in its fundraising phase. Shoku was interested but could never get an allocation.

One day, while walking back to the office and looking at the main road, he had a flash of insight—a niche investment idea: if Uber succeeded, New York taxi medallions would go to zero.

After researching, Shoku found a listed company called TAXI, whose main asset was taxi medallions.

When TAXI's stock was around $20, Shoku bought a large number of put options with strike prices of $3 to $5 and maturities of 6 to 9 months. A few months later, UberX lowered prices, TAXI's stock price dropped to $2.5, and Shoku made a 50x return.

Another of Shoku's genius trades happened in Japan.

From 2014 to 2015, the Bank of Japan adopted an aggressive easing policy. Most smart money was going long on the Nikkei index.

After flying to Tokyo and doing his research, Shoku believed the true asymmetric opportunity wasn't in stocks.

He found that the standard for buying an apartment in Japan was a 5% down payment, a two-year term, and backed by AAA-rated Mitsubishi credit—meaning you could walk away and hand back the keys if it went down. Essentially, it was a two-year call option with no recourse and 20x leverage built-in.

He bought 25 pre-sale apartments in prime high-end areas like Nishi-Azabu, making 20x returns in two years.

Excluding Hyperliquid, Shoku's most successful investment in crypto was Ethena. He recognized it as a product that could turn scalable cash-and-carry arbitrage into a "one-click subscription" mechanism, democratizing a strategy previously only executable by professional trading desks for regular users.

Shoku believes Ethena, Hyperliquid, and the fundraising platform Echo (later acquired by Coinbase) were the three most outstanding projects of this bull run, arguing these three projects made several historically unfair high-yield opportunities accessible to ordinary people.

Early Bet on Hyperliquid

In 2023, Hyperliquid was just getting started. The market-making treasury HLP had only about $2 million, the order book was nearly empty, and there was hardly any discussion on Twitter.

Shoku DM'd a few friends he thought might be willing to try the product, including Cobie, Jez, and CL.

CL later said this was the DM he most regretted ignoring this bull run.

Shoku: I spent a few hours with Jeff in Hong Kong. He's a smart guy, a great entrepreneur.

Jez later said that Shoku's DM about Hyperliquid in 2023 had a huge impact on his career.

Shoku replied that he messaged Jez because he thought Jez was one of the few people who would actually use the product and understand why it was special. "The lesson is to always try things, always use products, so when something truly special comes along, you can recognize it."

In March 2024, Shoku tweeted that he wasn't sure how big Hyperliquid as an L1 could become in traditional metrics like TVL or volume, but he was completely convinced that the quality and rigor of Hyperliquid's on-chain products and dApps would have no rivals in the entire crypto space.

The same month, in another tweet, he said that if he had to choose one token besides BTC, ETH, and SOL to lock up for ten years, he would choose HLP. The reason was that the market would continue to underestimate this team's capabilities and ambition.

In May, Shoku posted a tweet: "The real test of conviction for Hyperliquid is shifting from tweeting and trading to contributing and building. Hope to see more talent take action. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity."

These words were meant for others, but also for himself.

Getting in the Arena

On Christmas Day 2024, Shoku posted a tweet with a screenshot of an unreleased product on the Hyperliquid testnet.

Two months later, Unit was officially launched. As Hyperliquid's "bridge," Unit first enabled native BTC deposits and withdrawals on Hyperliquid, bringing spot trading capabilities for major crypto assets to the platform.

Shoku's friend Mod posted a long thread on the day Unit launched, recalling the first time he heard Shoku talk about Unit. The two were sheltering from the rain in a vacant lot lined with food trucks. Shoku said Hyperliquid was "one of the few exciting things in the crypto world."

When Shoku gave up his identity as an investor to become a founder, Mod's first reaction was that he was crazy. You only do that for a 100x opportunity, and fewer than a handful of people in the world are truly capable of driving Unit's vision.

Clearly, Shoku was one of them.

In May 2025, Shoku disclosed TradeXYZ, still in development: "After all this time, people still see Hyperliquid as just an on-chain perps exchange. But if you spend some time digging deeper, you'll see the true ambition of the HL team. The next product Unit is about to launch will make everyone see just how big this opportunity is."

Shoku delivered. Since its launch in October last year, TradeXYZ has been a massive success. Stocks, indices, futures, forex, and pre-IPO contracts have been rolled out one by one, covering almost the entire spectrum of financial assets.

Earlier today, TradeXYZ launched SpaceX's pre-IPO perpetual contract, SPCX, three weeks ahead of Nasdaq.

Whoever sets the price first defines the anchor of value. By seizing pricing power early, Shoku and his team are prying open the gates of Wall Street.