# Papertrade says its overnight winner gave “almost all” his profit back. The records show $1.1M still out

Source: trenchbook.app · filed Oct 11, 2026, updated Oct 11, 2026 · https://trenchbook.app/dispatch/papertrade-donated-back-check

> There is no official trenchbook token or contract address (CA). Anyone selling one is not us.

**In short:** On 10 October 2026 a trader using the Hyperliquid wallet 0x2025…840e traded Papertrade, a 1000x synthetic-perpetuals exchange that prices every trade off Hyperliquid's order-book mid. @btlrtrades posted that the wallet took $1.28M out of it; Papertrade replied that the trader "continued to try again, ultimately donating almost all his profit back to the house via new accounts". Papertrade's own account records show the wallet deposited $1,200,100 and withdrew $2,479,207, a net $1,279,106, matching @btlrtrades to the dollar. We found one linked account: a wallet the trader funded with $300,000 that day, which lost $176,814 on Papertrade, much of it on longs opened minutes after the trader's 30 shorts got stuck. Together the two accounts are $1,102,292 ahead. Accounts funded in other ways can't be ruled out, but nothing we found supports "almost all". Whether Papertrade blocked the trader's closes, as @btlrtrades guessed, can't be proven either way from public data.
Papertrade is an exchange on HyperEVM, Hyperliquid's smart-contract layer, that offers BTC and ETH positions at up to 1000x leverage. Trades are swaps against a pool of house money, priced at Hyperliquid's best bid and ask midpoint at that moment. [Its own docs](https://docs.papertrade.xyz) name the weak spot: "That is a real protocol risk of using BBO directly." Late on 10 October, [@btlrtrades posted](https://x.com/btlrtrades/status/2109129513078567221) that the wallet 0x2025…840e had taken $1.28M out of Papertrade by moving Hyperliquid's ETH price in its favor. At 11:42 AM ET on 11 October, [Papertrade answered](https://x.com/papertrade_xyz/status/2109308773231911359) that the user "continued to try again, ultimately donating almost all his profit back to the house via new accounts". We checked both claims against Papertrade's own account records and Hyperliquid's public ledger.
@btlrtrades's numbers hold. [Papertrade's cashflow records](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e/cashflows?limit=75) for the wallet show five deposits totalling $1,200,100 between 3:27 and 10:35 PM ET on 10 October, and five withdrawals totalling $2,479,207 between 5:13 and 10:10 PM ET, the largest [$1,543,489 at 6:06 PM](https://hyperevmscan.io/tx/0x4162ac5044104b91728580b156d25803a6f34c60281604c85b2d1d81418823b0). That is $1,279,106 more out than in. [Its trade records](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e/trades?limit=75) show 307 closed positions, 296 of them winners, worth $1.76M after Papertrade's win haircut, less $35,456 in win fees, and 30 ETH shorts liquidated for $450,001. The withdrawals reached the trader's Hyperliquid account from 0x6cd5…d0a2, the Papertrade contract that every Papertrade deposit address reports as its exchange.
The 30 shorts show how it worked, and how it stopped working. Between 7:12 and 7:20 PM ET the trader's Hyperliquid account sold 7,057 ETH in 769 fills, and Hyperliquid's ETH price fell from 2,507.3 to 2,504.4. In the same window, between 7:13:14 and 7:13:24 PM, the wallet opened 30 shorts on Papertrade at 2,507.35, each with $15,000 of margin at 660x, about $297M of exposure in all. @btlrtrades describes the earlier wins the same way: a push on Hyperliquid, then a quick close on Papertrade. These 30 never closed. At 10:31:54 PM, with the price at 2,509.95, all 30 were liquidated within the same second, in three transactions ([one of them](https://hyperevmscan.io/tx/0xc013c7bc9d3daf114ed2fb63cbec432f5003c2c202f65c3a15151ec6d07fa5c0)).
The linked account is 0x2024…dff4. The trader's wallet [sent it $50,000 at 2:00 PM ET](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/tx/0xbbd4e2bf5166108abd4e04464538770206cb00a4ec692f5c5f9d8e121069ea75) and [$250,000 at 7:29 PM ET](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/tx/0xeb38089ac4b434f2ecb104464971aa02038900805fb753c48f00b3ed83b80edd) on 10 October, and had sent it $100,000 on 6 September. Every Papertrade deposit address is a small contract that records whose it is: the one at 0x49cc…c1da reports 0x2024…dff4, and the trader's own, 0xa6a5…2ce4, reports 0x2025…840e. Thirty-three seconds after the $250,000 arrived, 0x2024 [moved $182,503 into its Papertrade deposit address](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/tx/0xa9f6db410fa83e63ab7004464973650201290026aaab5d354dbf8693ceac184e). Between 7:14 and 7:30 PM ET, minutes after the shorts got stuck, it opened dozens of ETH longs at 1000x, most with $8,000 or $10,000 of margin. Most were liquidated at 7:42 PM and between 8:25 and 8:31 PM. [Across the day](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x202486b34776b26b474aedb348658aaab5d2dff4/cashflows?limit=75) it deposited $389,246 and withdrew $212,431, a loss of $176,814.
That part of Papertrade's reply holds: an account tied to the trader kept trading and lost. Two parts don't. The account wasn't new: it first traded on Papertrade at 1:35 PM ET, two hours before the trader's main wallet did. And it didn't give back almost all the profit. Together the two accounts are $1,102,292 ahead. After 10:35 PM ET on 10 October the trader's main wallet sent nothing more out of Hyperliquid, and at 1:19 PM ET on 11 October it held 2,644,299 USDC on Hyperliquid's spot ledger. Its three declared Hyperliquid sub-accounts have no Papertrade activity. Accounts funded some other way, from another exchange or chain, can't be ruled out, so the gap could be smaller than it looks.
Papertrade also wrote that the losses came "without accounting for the cost of manipulating the bbo on hyperliquids side". That cost was real but small next to the winnings. Between 4:53 and 11:00 PM ET the trader's Hyperliquid account traded about $232M of ETH and booked about $44,000 in losses and $52,000 in fees, roughly $96,000 in all. That figure includes closing an ETH position the account already held, so the cost of the price pushes alone is somewhere below it. Net of it, the two accounts are about $1.0M ahead.
@btlrtrades guessed that "the team blocked 0x2025's closes to stop the attack." Public data can't settle that. A close attempt that never executes leaves no record on chain, so the trade history shows only the 7:13 PM opens and the 10:31 PM liquidation. Papertrade's docs say its relayer submits every open and close, so a close the relayer declined to send would look exactly the same. The relayer was processing closes in that window: 0x2024 closed a long for a $1,587 profit at 7:28 PM ET. Papertrade's own explanation points to its launch queue, which it says gave opens and closes "non-deterministic timing". Neither account can be confirmed.
One more detail changes what "donated to the house" means. Papertrade pays losing trades in its own token: PAPER is minted on every loss and liquidation, and staked PAPER earns a share of trading fees. The trader's 30 liquidated shorts minted 17.6M PAPER, about 0.31% of the 5.68B supply, and 0x2024's liquidations minted 7.5M more. We haven't put a dollar value on it, but part of the losses came back to the trader as a claim on Papertrade's future fees.

## What we don't know

- Whether the trader controls other Papertrade accounts funded from outside Hyperliquid, such as another exchange, chain or bridge.
- Whether Papertrade's relayer declined to submit the trader's closes between 7:13 and 10:31 PM ET, or the queue simply never reached them.
- What the 25.1M PAPER minted to the two accounts is worth.

## The claims, checked

- "papertrade got exploited for $1.28M by 0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e within just 8 hours of being live." (@btlrtrades, 11:50 PM ET, 10 October 2026): **holds**. Papertrade's cashflow records give the wallet $1,279,106 more withdrawn than deposited. Its trade records match his other figures: 296 winning closes, $1.73M after win fees, and $450,001 lost on 30 liquidated shorts. We didn't check the 8-hour timing against Papertrade's launch. [0x2025 cashflows (Papertrade API)](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e/cashflows?limit=75) [0x2025 trades (Papertrade API)](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e/trades?limit=75)
- "continued to try again, ultimately donating almost all his profit back to the house via new accounts" (@papertrade_xyz, 11:42 AM ET, 11 October 2026): **partly**. One linked account, funded by the trader, kept trading after the shorts stuck and lost $176,814. It wasn't new: it traded on Papertrade two hours before the trader's main wallet. Together the two accounts are $1,102,292 ahead, so "almost all" isn't supported by anything we found. Accounts funded from outside Hyperliquid can't be ruled out. [0x2024 cashflows (Papertrade API)](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x202486b34776b26b474aedb348658aaab5d2dff4/cashflows?limit=75) [$250,000 from 0x2025 to 0x2024](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/tx/0xeb38089ac4b434f2ecb104464971aa02038900805fb753c48f00b3ed83b80edd)
- "my guess is the team blocked 0x2025's closes to stop the attack." (@btlrtrades, 11:50 PM ET, 10 October 2026): **unproven**. Failed close attempts leave no on-chain record, and Papertrade's relayer submits every close, so a blocked close and an unreached one look the same. Papertrade points to its launch queue's timing. The relayer did process a close for 0x2024 at 7:28 PM ET. [One of the three liquidation transactions, 10:31 PM ET](https://hyperevmscan.io/tx/0xc013c7bc9d3daf114ed2fb63cbec432f5003c2c202f65c3a15151ec6d07fa5c0) [Papertrade docs](https://docs.papertrade.xyz)

## The wallets

- **the trader's Hyperliquid wallet:** `0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e`: Net +$1,279,106 on Papertrade (deposits $1,200,100, withdrawals $2,479,207). 296 winning closes, 30 shorts liquidated for $450,001. Held 2,644,299 USDC on Hyperliquid spot at 1:19 PM ET, 11 Oct.
- **linked Papertrade account:** `0x202486b34776b26b474aedb348658aaab5d2dff4`: Funded by 0x2025 ($50K and $250K on 10 Oct, $100K on 6 Sep). Net −$176,814 on Papertrade; first trade 1:35 PM ET, 10 Oct.
- **0x2025's Papertrade deposit address:** `0xa6a59ea991edfcba79f25f91dd30e25e3b182ce4`: Contract reports user() = 0x2025…840e and exchange() = 0x6cd5…d0a2.
- **0x2024's Papertrade deposit address:** `0x49ccca7896b5562ee98d92a900cb859608abc1da`: Contract reports user() = 0x2024…dff4. Received $182,503 from 0x2024 at 7:29 PM ET, 10 Oct.
- **Papertrade Exchange contract:** `0x6cd5661646289fb6e65ea5c032310fded797d0a2`: Sends Papertrade withdrawals to users' Hyperliquid accounts; reported as exchange() by every deposit address.

## Sources

- post: [@btlrtrades's post (10 Oct, 11:50 PM ET)](https://x.com/btlrtrades/status/2109129513078567221)
- post: [@papertrade_xyz's reply (11 Oct, 11:42 AM ET)](https://x.com/papertrade_xyz/status/2109308773231911359)
- docs: [Papertrade docs](https://docs.papertrade.xyz)
- api: [0x2025 Papertrade cashflows](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e/cashflows?limit=75)
- api: [0x2025 Papertrade trades](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e/trades?limit=75)
- api: [0x2024 Papertrade cashflows](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x202486b34776b26b474aedb348658aaab5d2dff4/cashflows?limit=75)
- api: [0x2024 Papertrade trades](https://exchange.papertrade.xyz/query/accounts/0x202486b34776b26b474aedb348658aaab5d2dff4/trades?limit=75)
- account: [0x2025 on Hyperliquid](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/address/0x2025137a136bea7446deba681cbfc7cf1970840e)
- account: [0x2024 on Hyperliquid](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/address/0x202486b34776b26b474aedb348658aaab5d2dff4)
- tx: [$50,000 from 0x2025 to 0x2024 (2:00 PM ET)](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/tx/0xbbd4e2bf5166108abd4e04464538770206cb00a4ec692f5c5f9d8e121069ea75)
- tx: [$250,000 from 0x2025 to 0x2024 (7:29 PM ET)](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/tx/0xeb38089ac4b434f2ecb104464971aa02038900805fb753c48f00b3ed83b80edd)
- tx: [$1,543,489 Papertrade withdrawal (6:06 PM ET)](https://hyperevmscan.io/tx/0x4162ac5044104b91728580b156d25803a6f34c60281604c85b2d1d81418823b0)
- tx: [One of the three liquidation transactions (10:31 PM ET)](https://hyperevmscan.io/tx/0xc013c7bc9d3daf114ed2fb63cbec432f5003c2c202f65c3a15151ec6d07fa5c0)
- tx: [$182,503 from 0x2024 into its deposit address (7:29 PM ET)](https://app.hyperliquid.xyz/explorer/tx/0xa9f6db410fa83e63ab7004464973650201290026aaab5d354dbf8693ceac184e)
- contract: [0x2025's deposit address on HyperEVM](https://hyperevmscan.io/address/0xa6a59ea991edfcba79f25f91dd30e25e3b182ce4)
- contract: [0x2024's deposit address on HyperEVM](https://hyperevmscan.io/address/0x49ccca7896b5562ee98d92a900cb859608abc1da)
- contract: [Papertrade Exchange contract](https://hyperevmscan.io/address/0x6cd5661646289fb6e65ea5c032310fded797d0a2)