Axiom

An anonymous X user named Matthew posted a long thread today claiming he found the real identity of Zach and accusing the crypto investigator of taking money from major industry players that almost never end up in his threads.
Matthew said the account was made this month and that this was his first post after spending years as a reader on X.
Matthew wrote, “Meet Zachary Wolk (@zachxbt),” then claimed Zach had exposed more than $500 million in crypto fraud while avoiding the same level of digging from others.
He comes from a small Eastern European nation; he lacks any organization behind him; he trades futures using his own funds; he got interested in Zach after noticing changes in the latter over the past six months. Matthew described the change as “paranoia” and said Zach had started acting like “a god.”
<h3 id="man-uses-court-records-and-old-swimming-pages-to-name-the-man-he-says-is-zach">Man uses court records and old swimming pages to name the man he says is Zach</h3>
According to Matthew, the first piece of evidence involved a defamation suit filed against Zach by Jeffery Huang aka Machi Big Brother in 2023 in a federal court in Texas.
Matthew referred to a CourtListener post, highlighting that paragraph 14 of the filing mentions “Defendant Zachary Wolk, residing in Kingsland, Texas.” As Matthew put it, the lawsuit had to be abandoned due to fear on Zach’s side, leading to the editing of the post involved.
Continuing with his explanation, Matthew explained that he used open-source research and found a profile of Zachary Wolk on Swimcloud in Texas.
<figure class="wp-caption alignnone"><img src="https://www.cryptopolitan.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Screenshot-2026-05-22-at-21.06.43.jpg" alt="Man claims to have discovered ZachXBT’s real identity, accuses him of being a plant" width="1158" height="1244">
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 Source: Matthew/X
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According to Matthew, this was a profile of a swimmer associated with Austin Swim Club and participated in various competitions between 2009 and 2015, including the 2014 Texas State Championship and the 2015 Texas State Championship.
Matthew pointed out that @zachxbt Twitter handle was registered in February 2015, the same month as state finals mentioned in the swimming record. Additionally, Matthew highlighted that Zach stated he started working in crypto in 2017 while still in college. This timeline matches the class of 2016 and a person who is aged 27-28.
Furthermore, a news article from Four Points from 2017 mentioned Zachary Wolk as being a former Vandegrift swimmer, along with accompanying pictures. According to Matthew, he discovered a new address and personal information, but would not share them.
Matthew then said Zach posted a $10,000 bounty on May 7, 2026, for Vova Sadkov, the LAB founder, and asked for “passport or government-issued ID details.” Matthew claimed paying for passport details could break 18 U.S.C. § 1028 and carry up to 15 years in federal prison.
<h3 id="matthew-links-donations-token-sales-and-hyperliquid-silence-to-his-claims">Matthew links donations, token sales, and Hyperliquid silence to his claims</h3>
Matthew also tagged a post made by Zach on Feb. 23, 2026, where he teased “a major investigation into one of crypto’s most profitable businesses.” Matthew said that Polymarket has created an entire prediction market on the matter with over $40M volume. “They said that 12 new wallets made significant bets on Axiom at very low odds and made $1.2M.”
Matthew pointed out that, according to Zach’s earlier post, he contacted the Axiom team for a comment on the matter. Matthew argued that this made the subject easy to leak, then accused Zach of creating a setup where insiders could profit before the public saw the report.
In addition, he mentioned the drama surrounding the ZACHXBT token back in January 2025 when, according to Matthew, an anonymous developer transferred 500 million ZACHXBT to Zach, which accounted for 50% of the total tokens. The market valuation of the token at that time was reportedly $88 million, and Zach sold 16,059 SOL valued at $3.87 million.
<figure class="wp-caption alignnone"><img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HI482VcX0AA1MpA?format=jpg&amp;name=small" alt="ZachXBT" width="600" height="400">
 <figcaption><a href="https://x.com/matthewabides/status/2057648404533010668" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Source</a>: Matthew/X
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</figure>
According to him, the tokens were allegedly unwanted, and selling them helped to preserve Zach’s reputation. The discussion returned to the legal case against Zach in June 2023 and his community defense fund that, according to Matthew, managed to raise $1.1 million.
Among the donors, he mentions Changpeng Zhao who donated $50,000, Justin Sun who donated $10,000, Jesse Powell from Kraken, and Sandeep Nailwal, one of the Polygon co-founders. Zach also received, according to Matthew, $580,000 from Optimism, $254,000 from Hyperliquid, $150,000 from BC.Game, and $53,000 from Bybit.
Next, Matthew states that Zach became an advisor for Paradigm afterward. He claims that Zach published seven critiques of Hyperliquid between December 2024 and January 2026 before receiving 10,000 HYPE tokens from them on January 18, 2026, worth $600,000 at the time. Matthew adds that since then, Zach hasn’t conducted any investigative reports about Hyperliquid for the next four months.
One commenter said Zach targets small meme coin ruggers, scammers, KOLs, and Chinese market makers, adding, “I guess that’s the reason he’s poking Kucoin because they did not pay ‘shut up’ fees.” Matthew replied, “probably @kucoincom just can’t offer enough to compete with giants.”
<figure class="wp-caption alignnone"><img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HI48_htWIAAIJsX?format=jpg&amp;name=small" alt="ZachXBT" width="600" height="435">
 <figcaption>
 Source: Matthew/X
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Earlier today, Zach responded to a separate user who said they lost funds through KuCoin and offered him $100,000 for help. Zach said, “Kucoin does not assist victims or law enforcement,” then said the team allows dirty activity to pass through when it brings fees. He added that he could not force KuCoin to answer German law enforcement, beyond putting more attention on the issue.
Most replies under Matthew’s thread still backed Zach. One user wrote, “Kinda weird to dox someone who very well could be harmed physically due to the nature of his work.” Matthew answered, “this is only 20 min OSINT investigation, not a dox,” and said he did not publish everything he found.
Another user stated that it was “just fluff with no clear results” and that “doxxing a researcher crypto actually needs is not a flex.” Yet another person wrote that Matthew had uncovered someone who monitors terrorist finance, dangerous criminals, and the Lazarus Group. Finally, Matthew closed out his thread by mentioning CourtListener, Swimcloud, Four Points News, Lookonchain, and m4khn as sources and telling people not to idolize anyone.
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Man exposes ZachXBT’s real identity as Zachary Wolk, accuses him of scam and dishonesty

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