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Comment by seibelj | Hacker News Reader

FYI this is jump trading, probably the largest prop trader and market maker in crypto. I have heard they lost over $4 billion from the Luna / UST crash although their profits from the bull run were so high they are likely fine.

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4 billion seems an enormous amount. Do you know how they trade it?

I don’t work in trading but everyone in trading knows jump. Likely they invest in a lot of altcoins in pre-sales at significant discounts. Also they were the ones that bailed out Wormhole when they got hacked, likely because the hundreds of millions lost was jump’s own money. They are heavily into solana like all big traders for whatever reason. I think solana is weak tech but there is tons of VC money behind it.

Jump is into Solana because Solana is their baby; it's a centralized technology that they are behind.

Source: was supposed to get in a call with a few people with @solana.com email addresses, got a calendar invite with same names @jumptrading.com addresses.

Interesting. I heard someone from Solana labs describe write access to Solana as an oligopoly. But I don’t understand the play. Is it for Jump and retail investors to play in the same Dex derivative bath tub?

I work in trading and didn't hear $4bn, that's why I was asking.

Generally buy low sell high, as all traders attempt :)

> I have heard they lost over $4 billion from the Luna / UST crash

Source for this? I can't seem to find this claim anywhere.

No public source but number seems approximately correct +/- 1bn. Their 2021 pnl was over 10bn though so they still up massively.

Half the traders I know who were sitting on 3000% gains in 2021 are down to 300-500% gains by 2022.

Crypto markets fall apart as quickly as they go up. Most who entered the market in late 2021 are down and will be down for years (forever if they're holding some dead altcoin).

You are referring to mark to market gains/losses and not actually realized, correct? Like jump didn’t actually clear 10 bill in profit or lose 4. They were in early size and let it ride but actually investment was small, do I have it right?

Mark to market and realized losses are the same thing for a trading firm.

I've also heard that 10-man team at Tower made about $3B trading crypto last year. The team leader got a $600M bonus.

What's $10bn less short term cap gains taxes less $4bn?

You don't trade your money. You trade the clients money and take 2% of the assets and 20% of the gains. Notice the customers don't have yachts.

Jump Trading, like most other HFT firms do not take client money. They trade only the owner's personal capital.

Prop trading firms usually trade their own money.

Jump is a prop trading firm so this is just completely wrong, they only trade their own money.

IIUC you don't pay capital gains when you're operating a trading firm, you keep a balance sheet and subtract losses from gains

This is true for some asset classes. I cannot speak to crypto, though.

I work in the industry and know a lot of people and that is what I heard.

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