The 2025 Crypto Battlefield Trilogy: From Contract Liquidations to Life Invasion, Whale Lessons in the Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

The rewritten is a summary of failure cases in the crypto market in 2025.

The crypto market in 2025 is like a runaway high-speed train. Looking out the window, you can only see survivors raising their glasses in celebration, but you can't see the passengers being thrown off the tracks.

That year, we witnessed the brutal laws of the market: some went from a $4.5 billion profit to a $21 million loss in less than 90 days; some evaporated $100 million in a week; some had $4 million drained from them in just 11 minutes at a birthday party. Behind these numbers lies a darker truth— in the Web3 jungle, there are no absolute winners, nor absolute safety.

Act One: The Leveraged Guillotine

From “Spot King” to “Liquidation God”

A well-known digital asset holder was once a winner in the Hyperliquid ecosystem, earning over $44 million in unrealized profits by betting on HYPE, XPL, and ETH. But when these two tokens plummeted 46% and sharply adjusted between September and October, the tragedy began.

He failed to take profits in time and instead used 20-25x leverage to aggressively buy ETH. Data shows he held between 7,000 and 30,000 ETH long positions with extremely high leverage. Every dip in ETH triggered automatic liquidation.

In just the first 19 days of November, he experienced 71 forced liquidations—averaging 4 liquidations per day. Throughout November, he kept adding margin, getting liquidated, adding more, getting liquidated again—a never-ending nightmare. Ultimately, this futures trader's perpetual loss reached $21.2 million. From profit to loss in less than three months, assets shrank by over $66 million.

The lesson here is simple: leverage can help you double your money quickly, but it can also drag you into the abyss at twice the speed.

The $5 Billion Gambler

Another trader used 40x leverage to open a massive $1.25 billion long position on BTC near its all-time high (around $108,000). This position exceeded the foreign exchange reserves of many countries. He tried to become the world's richest person with this “ultimate bet.”

But markets don't tell stories. BTC then corrected, falling below $105,000. Within a week, this huge position melted away under the scorching sun. He was forced to cut losses and exit, losing nearly $10 million. All the wealth gained from meme coins was handed back to the market in one night.

He left a nihilistic message on social media: “Money isn't real.”

In November, he tried to turn things around, betting that BTC would fall below $92,000. Within two months, he was liquidated 45 times, with the worst day seeing 12 liquidations in 12 hours.

The Spot Trap

Another trader with a borrowed position of 66,000 ETH had previously made $24 million from shorting. But greed overtook reason. On November 5, after closing his short, he immediately reversed position and started aggressively buying the dip.

In nine days, he transferred $11.87 billion to a major exchange, withdrew 422,000 ETH at a cost basis of $3,413. To fund this gamble, he also borrowed $485 million in leverage.

When ETH fell below $3,000, he was deeply trapped. At his worst, his unrealized loss on this massive long position hit $133 million. The $24 million profit he previously made evaporated instantly, and he lost $100 million of principal. From a “short hunter,” he became a “leveraged gambler,” burdened with $480 million in debt.

On November 16, he began to admit defeat. He withdrew 177,000 ETH, gradually sold on major exchanges, realizing a loss of $125 million.

Meme Coin Collapse

In October, a whale fell into the “Chinese meme coin” trap while the market fluctuated between AI coins and major tokens. He spent $4.49 million buying various meme tokens on the BSC chain.

One token, “Somebody's Life,” he bought at an average price of $0.3485, investing a total of $4.08 million, becoming the 7th largest holder. Eight days later, these meme assets evaporated by 56.5%, with unrealized losses exceeding $3 million.

He had countless chances to escape but chose to hold firm with “diamond hands.” Until early November, his faith shattered in front of the candlestick chart, and he sold everything within 50 minutes. Ultimately, he lost $3.598 million, with just one token “Somebody's Life” losing $2.49 million.

The lesson is clear: in the meme coin world, more terrifying than contract risk is liquidity exhaustion. Once the trend reverses, every second is an escape opportunity; holding on to the end only leads to total ruin.

Act Two: Code and Reality Flaws

The “Two Keys on the Door Handle” of Multi-Signature Wallets

An on-chain whale used the industry-standard Safe multi-signature wallet to store assets. In theory, multi-signature is very secure—requiring multiple private keys to sign transactions. But he made a fatal mistake: both private keys were stored on the same computer.

It's like buying the world's most secure safe but hanging both keys on the door handle.

When he double-clicked to open a malicious file, the virus easily stole all private keys. $27 million in assets vanished overnight, including 4,250 ETH ($14 million) washed into mixers.

This case proves: if private keys are not physically isolated, even the most advanced multi-signature wallet is just a piece of paper.

The 11-Minute Birthday Nightmare

A founder of a crypto project was celebrating his 29th birthday. He stepped into the bathroom and left his phone for just a few minutes. In those 11 minutes, someone (or hidden malware) manually manipulated his wallet, transferring over $4 million.

On-chain data shows this operation took 11 minutes, after which the funds were dispersed into 7 addresses, eventually exchanged for ETH and sent to mixers.

This isn't high-level hacking; it's opportunistic intrusion. The lesson: don't store large amounts of hot wallet private keys on everyday social devices.

Act Three: From Code Battles to Real-World Warfare

51 Minutes Under Gunfire

A tech investor in a San Francisco mansion faced a nightmare. A disguised delivery person tricked his way in, pointed a gun at him, bound him with tape, and beat him.

Over 90 minutes, he was forced to hand over his passwords, losing $11 million in crypto assets.

According to reports, about 60 similar “wrench attacks” (physical violence combined with theft of crypto assets) have occurred worldwide over the past three years, causing losses of tens of millions of dollars.

This reveals a disturbing trend: Web3 crime is evolving from online to offline. Hackers no longer just need to crack codes—they need to break into doors.

Supply Chain Poisoning

An ordinary investor sought maximum security and bought a “cheap” hardware wallet on a short video platform. Unbeknownst to him, the wallet had been tampered with before leaving the factory, and the private key was compromised.

When he transferred 50 million RMB (about $7 million), he was actually handing money directly to hackers. Hours later, the funds were washed through a privacy platform.

Cheap isn't good—this lowest-cost lesson was validated with $7 million.

A Call from “Official Customer Service”

A conservative whale holding $3 billion in Bitcoin received a call. On the other end was a “senior engineer from the official hardware wallet,” who used a professional and gentle tone, claiming his device had a serious vulnerability and needed an immediate “firmware upgrade.”

During the hour-long “guidance,” the whale lowered his guard completely and personally transferred 783 BTC (worth about $91.4 million at the time).

After the transfer, the funds were immediately washed into mixers for laundering.

Similar cases happened in 2024, with victims losing up to $300 million. This is the simplest and most effective attack—social engineering triumphs over technical defenses.

Epilogue: Survivor Bias

These 10 stories—from contract liquidations to personal invasions, from code flaws to human weaknesses—use nearly $10 billion in “tuition” to depict the true landscape of Web3.

In this world:

• There are no absolute winners (hackers can also be eaten by the market)
• There is no absolute safety (multi-signature can't prevent viruses on daily devices)
• There are no impregnable fortresses (mansions can't stop guns, scammers can't resist greed)

Every protagonist was once excellent or lucky, experiencing momentary victory.

But if there's a survival rule in the 2025 crypto market to remember, it's not “how to get rich quickly,” but “how to survive.”

In the battlefield of cryptocurrencies, the qualification to live is always more precious than how much you earn. After all, only the living have the right to tell the story of the next year.