A popular Bitcoin trader lost $21 million. Now he’s gone

Pseudonymous crypto trader J0E007, a well-known Bitcoin “bear whale” who even may—or may not—have been responsible for some of BTC’s price movements this year, has suddenly vanished from the face of the Internet.

When he was last seen, J0E’s unrealized loss on Bitfinex amounted to over $21 million, making him the top trader in the red zone. Now, he has apparently deleted his Twitter and Bitfinex accounts—or at least somehow hid the metrics from the traders’ leaderboard—and he’s nowhere to be seen.

Back in February, J0E made headlines when Bitcoin’s price drop netted him $10 million in five minutes. At the time, users speculated that the “bear whale” himself could’ve been one of the reasons for the correction.

“How to recover 10M in 5 minutes @J0E007,” tweeted Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino at the time.

Popular crypto trader Filbfilb also said that J0E007 could’ve potentially taken advantage of thin order books to drop Bitcoin’s price below $10,000, noting that it “Looks like finex whale dumped.”

An unexpected price rise

As Bitcoin’s pre-halving rally began to get traction recently, driving the price of BTC closer to $10,000, J0E007’s fortune started to reverse. Somewhere between May 7 and 8, his unrealized loss on Bitfinex grew to exceed $21 million.

“Now JOE007 is REKT $20mln loss on his short position,” tweeted popular crypto enthusiast PlanB on April 30. Shorting is a trading strategy based on the assumption that the asset’s price will go down in the near future.

J0E007 needed Bitcoin’s price to go down in order to make a profit. But instead, Bitcoin headed straight for $10,000.