Garrett Jin has closed his entire 38,000 ZEC short position on Hyperliquid, ending a trade that ran for nearly three months and locking in an estimated realized loss of $35.44 million. The closing market orders briefly pushed Zcash (ZEC) higher as the position — worth roughly $58.5 million at the time it was unwound — was removed from the market.

Jin covered the short through market orders executed over approximately 90 minutes. Because a short can only be closed by buying back the underlying asset, the unwinding itself became a source of demand: the buying pressure lifted ZEC by about 2.7%, from $1,490 to $1,530.

The exit marks the end of a position that had grown considerably since June, when Jin rebuilt his ZEC short with an initial 11,780 ZEC position valued at roughly $4.92 million. He continued adding exposure as Zcash climbed, eventually building the position to approximately 40,000 ZEC earlier this month — meaning the trade's size expanded alongside a market that had more than tripled from the levels where the short was first rebuilt.

ZEC Rally Turns Short Into $35 Million Loss

Jin had previously profited from bearish ZEC trades, earning more than $11 million in total, including an $11.24 million gain following Zcash's June selloff. His latest position, however, moved in the opposite direction.

ZEC climbed from below $500 when the short began being built to more than $1,500 this month, leaving the trade with increasingly large unrealized losses before its closure. Lookonchain placed the final realized loss at $35.44 million, while separate tracking from Onchain Lens (via Lookonchain) estimated the loss at approximately $36.13 million — a gap attributed to differences in how the position's executions and costs were calculated.

Hyperliquid's annualized ZEC funding rate briefly exceeded 170% during the closing activity, as the large short was removed from the market. Funding rates on perpetual futures venues are periodic payments between long and short holders, and annualized readings at that level illustrate how expensive carrying the position had become through the rally. The episode is also a reminder that sizable derivatives positions on public venues like Hyperliquid leave a visible trail — which is how analytics desks such as Lookonchain and Onchain Lens were able to time and size the exit in near real time.

Jin Still Holds $309 Million in Spot ZEC

The derivatives loss sits alongside a much larger profitable spot position. A wallet tracked as Jin's still holds 202,078 ZEC onchain, valued at approximately $309 million when Lookonchain checked the position.

Those coins were withdrawn from Binance roughly nine months ago, when ZEC traded near $437. At a price of about $1,530 per ZEC, the spot holdings carried approximately $221 million in unrealized profit.

Jin did not sell any of the spot ZEC while closing the short. He had previously described the bearish derivatives position as a partial hedge against his broader ZEC exposure, which is why the realized derivatives loss and the unrealized spot gains coexist in the same portfolio.

Zcash's rally has accelerated alongside stronger institutional demand. Grayscale's Zcash ETF recently recorded $46.6 million in daily inflows as ZEC approached $1,600 — a figure that shows how daily ETF flow reports have become a standard way to track institutional uptake of the token.

The tracked Hyperliquid account also holds a long position of roughly 1,330 BTC, valued near $107.8 million, with approximately $3.7 million in unrealized profit at the latest check. ZEC traded near $1,455 in early trading on September 21, after reaching $1,595 on September 19. Jin's remaining spot ZEC and Hyperliquid positions remain publicly visible in the data cited by Lookonchain and Onchain Lens, leaving an onchain record for anyone following how his exposure develops.