That massive red candlestick showing Bitcoin crashing to as low as $8,900 on the crypto exchange and derivatives trading platform BitMEX was not a nightmare.
BitMEX is investigating the “unusual activity” on its BTC/Tether spot market that temporarily brought down Bitcoin prices by 80%.
Bitcoin’s Flash Crash On BitMEX
Bitcoin (BTC) saw a sudden and huge flash crash on BitMEX late Monday. The fall started at 22:40 UTC, and the BTC price had dropped to $8,900 within minutes — the lowest level since early 2020. The recovery was equally swift, with prices recovering above $67,000 ten minutes after the abrupt drop.
BitMEX issued a statement acknowledging the unusual activity and assuring customers that their funds were safe.
“Bitcoin down to $8,900 on BitMEX?” Well, not quite the whole picture.
Yes, we are investigating potential misconduct by traders on our Bitcoin-USDT Spot market (
Did you even know we offer Spot trading?)
However, this incident had NO impact on our billion-dollar derivatives… pic.twitter.com/qWXXnyQxjw
— BitMEX (@BitMEX) March 19, 2024
Moreover, the exchange added that the incident did not affect its “billion-dollar derivatives markets”. BitMEX also reassured users that its trading platform is operating normally, with deposits and withdrawals being processed as usual.
Notably, Bitcoin’s global average price remained steadily above $67,000 during the whipsawing episode on BitMEX’s spot market. This discrepancy has sparked speculations among crypto market watchers about the cause of the flash crash.
Whale Sell-Off Triggered Crash?
Members of the crypto Twitter community have suggested that a massive sell order or whale selling triggered the price crash.
According to pseudonymous crypto researcher Syq, the unknown whale placed a market sell order of more than 850 BTC ($55 million) on BitMEX, pushing the XBT/USDT spot pair to $8,900.
The researcher also revealed that BitMEX had disabled the withdrawals from some accounts. In response to the blocked accounts, BitMEX revealed that it had temporarily disabled withdrawals for only a bunch of accounts involved in the investigation.
Bitcoin is currently trading for $63,017, according to CoinGecko data.
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