E Guard also surrenders? Brother Ma Ji's Ethereum liquidation hits 786 million TWD, Yi Li Hua quietly reduces leverage

Ethereum’s sharp decline triggers leverage risks; Brother Maji continues to bet despite liquidation, while Yi Lihua shifts towards debt repayment and deleveraging. Market divergence highlights differences in ETH bullish and bearish strategies.

Ethereum price dropped in the early hours of the 26th Taiwan time, with a low of $2,787. Whether it’s Brother Maji, who is bullish on contracts, or Yi Lihua from Trend Research, who uses leverage to buy spot, both suffered heavy losses. After Brother Maji’s 25x long ETH position was liquidated on the 25th, he re-established a long position. According to statistics, he has already lost $25 million USD, approximately NT$786 million. Similarly, spot trader Yi Lihua is also floating at a loss of $21.5 million USD, and during this decline, he no longer adds to his position to average down but instead transfers tokens on-chain to repay loans and reduce leverage.

Brother Maji’s liquidation and re-betting, with a total loss of NT$780 million

Late on the 26th, ETH fell by 3.89%. Brother Maji, who always tears up while bullish on ETH, faced liquidation of his 25x long ETH position on Hyperliquid. However, he did not intend to stop there but re-established a long position in ETH. According to statistics, he has already lost $25 million USD, approximately NT$786 million.

Image source: 《Chain News》

Yi Lihua explains why he is heavily long ETH

Also known as E Guard, cryptocurrency investor Yi Lihua recently explained why he is heavily long ETH ($ETH) and relatively underweight Bitcoin ($BTC). Regarding the difference that ETH’s price remains below the previous bull market high while BTC has nearly broken through its previous high by 40%, Yi Lihua pointed out that over the past four years, the global interest rate cycle has been rising, putting risk assets under pressure. In the crypto market, only Bitcoin has the quasi-safe-haven attribute, able to lead to new highs in a high-interest-rate environment, while other assets’ performance is naturally limited.

However, he believes that as the global interest rate cycle shifts to easing, the crypto market will usher in a full bull market again. Historical experience shows that during genuine bull phases, ETH’s gains often significantly outperform BTC. Regarding the market’s continued cycle-based outlook and concerns about a prolonged bear market, Yi Lihua bluntly states that traditional cycle models can no longer explain the current structure. He believes that under the background of easing expectations, policy shifts, and the acceleration of stablecoins’ global adoption, past cycle regularities have been broken.

He further points out that in the last bull market, ETH’s application scenarios were limited, but the biggest change this cycle is that stablecoins have become key tools supporting the debt system and on-chain finance, with potential growth space of dozens of times. Coupled with the demand for financial services on assets worth trillions of dollars on-chain, ETH will be the core ecosystem for this growth.

Leverage and lending risks? Yi Lihua: ETH above $1,000 is safe

The outside world also concerns whether his ETH positions involving lending operations pose systemic risks. In response, Yi Lihua said he has reserved sufficient liquidity to repay most of his borrowed positions at any time and has passed stress tests, judging that as long as ETH stays above $1,000, the overall position is absolutely safe. He emphasized that this is merely a difference in risk tolerance and strategy among different institutions, not reckless gambling.

Regarding external doubts that he liquidated around $4,500 ETH and whether he was calling for others to buy in, Yi Lihua clarified that the operation was based on the judgment at the time that the market faced significant cyclical risks, constituting a strategic retreat, and all operations are on-chain verifiable.

He stated that selling was to accumulate more ETH at lower risk levels, a rational choice any swing trader would make. Even as one of the major investors, compared to ETH’s market cap of over $360 billion USD, his position cannot influence the long-term trend. He emphasized: “We are just riding the trend; whether we are here or not, ETH will follow its own path.”

On-chain data shows: Yi Lihua no longer buys on dips, instead focusing on debt repayment and deleveraging

However, on-chain analyst Yu Jin pointed out that in previous ETH downturns, Trend Research often borrowed USDT to buy more ETH on centralized exchanges like Binance. But after this decline, no new buying appeared. Instead, about three hours ago, Trend Research withdrew approximately 30 million USDT from Binance to the chain to repay loans, indicating a short-term shift in focus toward reducing leverage and managing risk, rather than further lowering the average cost of holdings.

As of now, Trend Research still holds about 651,300 ETH, with a market value of approximately $1.85 billion USD, and an average cost basis of around $3,180 USD, with an unrealized loss of about $215 million USD. Regarding leverage, they have about $1.03 billion USD in stablecoin loans on Aave, corresponding to an overall leverage of approximately 2.2x.

• This article is reprinted with permission from：《Chain News》
• Original title：《E Guard Surrenders? Brother Maji’s ETH Liquidation of NT$780 Million, Yi Lihua Quietly Deleverages》
• Original author: Neo