Andrew Tate deposited $727,000 into Hyperliquid last year, took no withdrawals and lost the entire stack in a brutal series of leveraged liquidations that culminated on November 18, when his account hit zero.
In fact, according to Arkham’s on-chain ledger, the approximately $75,000 in referral commissions that Tate earned by bringing traders onto the platform was traded back into positions and liquidated.
The saga provides a case study in how high leverage, low win rates and reflexive doubling can turn a six-figure bankroll into a public spectacle, especially when the trader broadcasts every entry and takedown on social media.
Tate’s Hyperliquid activity spans almost a year, with the first documented cluster of forced closures landing on December 19, 2024.
That day there were multiple long positions in BTC, ETH, SOL, LINK, HYPE and PENGU liquidated simultaneouslyThis is evident from Arkham’s trading history overview.
The pattern that would define the next eleven months was already visible: high leverage on directional crypto bets, minimal risk management, and a preference for re-entering losing trades at higher multiples rather than reducing exposure.
June’s ETH gamble and the running count
The most public implosion occurred on June 10, when Tate placed a 25x leveraged long on ETH around $2,515.90, bragging about the size and conviction behind the trade.
Hours later, the position was liquidated and the post deleted.
The next day, Lookonchain published a dashboard snapshot linking a Hyperliquid tracker address to Tate, showing 76 trades, a 35.53% win rate, and approximately $583,000 in cumulative losses.
That winning percentage, just one in three, meant Tate needed his winners to outnumber his losers to substantially break even. They didn’t.
The transparency of Hyperliquid’s order book and settlement layer meant that every booking, every margin call and every liquidation was visible to anyone watching the address. Tate’s habit of posting trades before they were resolved only increased visibility.
September and November: the last rut
September brought another notable loss when a long position in WLFI was liquidated at approximately $67,500.
Reports at the time indicated that Tate attempted to reenter trading at a similar level and lost money again, a pattern that would repeat itself during the final weeks of his account’s life.
In November the pile became visibly thinner. On November 14, a 40x leveraged BTC was blown long at around $235,000. Four days later the account was completely deleted.
The last series unfolded on November 18 around 7:15 PM EST, when Tate’s last long positions in BTC were liquidated near $90,000.
Arkham’s autopsy states that Tate deposited $727,000 over the entire cycle, withdrew nothing and used up the entire balance, including the $75,000 in referral income.
That referral figure is worth pausing on: Tate brought enough traders to Hyperliquid to earn a meaningful cut, and then traded those earnings into the same leveraged positions that had already cost him six figures.
It was not just an inability to preserve capital, but also an inability to recognize that the strategy itself was broken.
From November 1 through November 19, Tate completed 19 liquidations, making him one of Hyperliquid’s most liquidated traders for the month, according to Lookonchain summaries. He trailed only Machi Big Brother and James Wynn in total forced closures during that period.
The final tally includes positions in BTC, ETH, SOL, and a rotating cast of smaller tokens, all entered at leverage multiples ranging from 10x to 40x.
The higher the leverage, the smaller the withdrawal required to trigger a margin call. In a volatile month for crypto, those calls came quickly.
What leverage and low win rates do to a stack
The mechanics behind Tate’s takedown are simple: high leverage magnifies both wins and losses, and a win rate of less than 40% means you lose more trades than you win.
On a leveraged perpetual contract, a 2.5% move against a 40× position is enough to cause liquidation.
Tate’s positions were often at or above that threshold, meaning even small withdrawals could lock him out.
When he re-entered after a forced close with similar or higher leverage, he was essentially resetting the same trade with a smaller stack and the same risk parameters. Over time, that dynamic will grind capital to zero.
The $75,000 in referral revenue compounds the problem. Hyperliquid’s referral program pays out a percentage of the trading fees generated by users that a trader brings to the platform.
Tate earned that $75,000 by generating enough volume, either from himself or from followers who signed up through his link, to qualify for the discount.
Instead of withdrawing it or using it to reduce leverage, he traded it into the same positions that had already been liquidated several times.
That decision reflects either a belief that the next trade would reverse the trend or a misunderstanding of how quickly leverage can eat up a bankroll if the win rate remains low.
Why this happened in public
Tate’s willingness to broadcast trades before they were resolved turned a personal trading account into a public ledger.
Most traders who increase leverage do so quietly, as their liquidations appear in the aggregate stock market data but are not tied to identities or stories.
Tate posted entries, tagged positions and occasionally deleted evidence after forced closures, a pattern that guaranteed media attention and sleuthing up the chain.
Arkham, Lookonchain and others built trackers specifically to monitor the account, knowing that any liquidation would generate clicks and comments.
The transparency of Hyperliquid’s infrastructure made tracking trivial. Unlike centralized exchanges, where account information is private, Hyperliquid handles trading history to anyone with the address.
When Lookonchain linked Tate’s public persona to a specific Hyperliquid address, the ledger became a spectator sport.
Every margin call, every re-entry and every final liquidation was time-stamped and archived in real time.
The broader question raised by the Tate saga is whether highly leveraged perpetual platforms are designed for retail success or structured to extract capital from overconfident traders.
Hyperliquid offers up to 50x leverage on select pairs, with margin calls automatically triggered when equity falls below maintenance thresholds.
For advanced traders with tight risk management, these tools enable capital-efficient strategies. For traders with low win rates and a habit of doubling down, they function as liquidation machines.
Tate’s $727,000 loss won’t change Hyperliquid’s fee structure or leverage limits, but it does provide a public case study of what happens when leverage, low win rates and reflexive re-entry collide.
The platform collected trading fees for every position, every re-entry and every forced close. The referral program paid Tate $75,000 to bring volume to the exchange, then got that $75,000 back through liquidations.
From a business perspective, the system worked exactly as designed.
For retail traders watching the saga unfold, the lesson is less about Tate’s specific mistakes and more about the structural dynamics of leveraged trading.
A 35% win rate is achievable with proper position sizing and risk management. Yet it becomes fatal when combined with 25x leverage and the habit of re-entering losing trades at higher multiples.
The transparency of on-chain settlement means that these dynamics are now visible in real time, transforming individual outbursts into public education or public entertainment depending on who is watching.
Tate’s account is at zero. Hyperliquid’s order book continues. The $727,000 is gone, the referral revenue is gone, and the ledger is public.
What remains is a timestamp of how quickly leverage can consume capital if the trader refuses to walk away.
