On October 10, 2025, President Trump posted that China would face 100% tariffs. Crypto crashed. A Hyperliquid trader had already bet on the fall, says House Oversight Chairman James Comer.
That bet just pulled three more platforms into Congress’ insider trading probe. On Tuesday, Comer sent letters to Hyperliquid, Crypto.com, and PredictIt owner Aristotle Exchange.
The $1.1 Billion Bet Comer Wants Explained
Comer’s letter to Hyperliquid CEO Jeff Yan does not name the trader. It says the short went on before the tariff news was public.
“I’m expanding the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into insider trading on prediction markets,” he said.
The most tracked Hyperliquid short that day was worth about $1.1 billion in Bitcoin and Ether, per an Investing.com analysis. The wallet reportedly added to it one minute before Trump posted. It made over $150 million as $19 billion in leveraged bets were wiped out.
On-chain sleuths linked the wallet to whale Garrett Jin, a former BitForex CEO. Jin denied insider trading and said he traded for a client.
Every Hyperliquid trade sits on a public blockchain. The wallet is visible. The person behind it is not.
“This transaction, precisely timed to a nonpublic government decision, executed on a platform with apparently no identity verification or mechanism to refer the responsible party to U.S. law enforcement, mirrors a pattern of insider trading the Committee is investigating across the prediction market sector,” CNBC reported, citing an excerpt in Comer’s letter.
What These Platforms Must Do Now
Crypto.com lets U.S. users bet on politics, sports, and the economy through a regulated prediction arm. PredictIt has run political bets since 2014.
Comer first targeted Kalshi and Polymarket in May. Its backdrop includes a soldier charged in April with using inside information to win about $400,000 on Maduro bets. Kalshi also gave George Santos a lifetime trading ban for betting on his own State of the Union appearance.
“As online prediction platforms grow and become more mainstream, some bad actors have exploited the platforms to make thousands of dollars by placing bets based on nonpublic information,” Comer added.
Each must share its Know Your Customer (KYC) identity checks and explain how it catches suspicious trades.
Kalshi and Polymarket have already handed over nearly 1,000 documents.
