Prominent on-chain investigator ZachXBT has claimed that William Parker, a UK man linked to a $1 million casino theft and previous hacking scandals, is the mysterious Hyperliquid whale.

The entity allegedly manipulated crypto markets, profiting around $20 million using highly leveraged positions.

Shady Trades and Suspicious Profits

In a thread on X, ZachXBT detailed how the whale’s initial funding came from an input validation exploit on a casino game. The exploiter apparently negotiated payouts via a now-deleted Telegram account, which ZachXBT linked to Parker’s UK phone number.

Formerly known as Alistair Packover, Parker’s criminal history dates back to the early 2010s when he faced fraud charges in the UK for hacking and gambling-related crimes. Last year, he was arrested in Finland for stealing $903,000 from two online casinos by manipulating game outcomes.

The whale gained notoriety in March after executing two massive leveraged trades. The first was a 50x leveraged Ethereum and Bitcoin long position, resulting in a $10 million gain just before U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and altcoin stockpile.

Another short position on BTC with 40x leverage earned the purported fraudster an extra $9 million.

Adding to the controversy, the trader liquidated a $340 million ETH long position on Hyperliquid, walking away with some $1.8 million in profit while causing a $4 million dent in the platform’s HLP vault. Initially, there had been rumors that an exploit on Hyperliquid caused the loss, but the exchange quickly clarified that it was the predictable consequence of how its systems operate under extreme conditions.

ZachXBT’s investigations connected the whale’s address to various suspicious accounts on platforms like Roobet, Binance, and Gamdon. The sleuth identified the cluster of wallets tied to the whale, including one that received $17,100 from a phishing drainer earlier in the year. He also shared screenshots of the trader admitting on X to making $20 million through GMX and Hyperliquid trades.

Market Reaction

Following ZachXBT’s exposure, HYPE, a Hyperliquid ecosystem token, experienced sharp volatility. At one point, it dropped sharply from an intra-day high of $15.11 to a low of $14.04. However, it recovered somewhat, climbing to about $14.41. At the time of writing, HYPE was down 3.1%, with its monthly losses amounting to nearly 40%.