BitMEX’s XBT/USD pair glitched on Monday, with the market seeing the lowest bitcoin price since early 2022.
A couple of bears who placed their buy order as low as $8,900 on crypto exchange BitMEX’s spot market might have gotten lucky as the price crashed that low late Monday.
The sudden crash in bitcoin’s price on BitMEX was speculated to result from a large sell order placed on the exchange. According to rumors, investors sold about 977 BTC (worth $66 million) on BitMEX, crashing the XBT/USD pair to as low as $8,900 per bitcoin.
Dump-Pump Scenario
The sudden dip to $8,900 on BitMEX happened in two minutes, with the price recovering to that of the global market afterward. Stats from Trading View showed that this occurred between 22.40 UTC and 22.50 UTC, with the price immediately moving back to $67,000.
The gloomy scenario for BitMEX might have been a lucky entry for a bear who may have randomly placed a buy order that low on the exchange. $8,900 per bitcoin was last seen in the crypto market in early 2022.
While reports showed that the glitch only affected the spot trade on the XBT/USD pair, a user’s claim paints a different picture. This user asserts that he was liquidating Bitcoin in the leveraged market, and his experience was far from pleasant. He ‘aped’ into a long position on the BTC/USDT pair with a 50x leverage on Monday, only to lose all his money in the brief dump.
FUCK THIS
I'M OUT.
I LISTENED TO FLOOD [BITMEX] AND THE CRYPTO DOG ON TWITTER AND MARKET LONGED AT 50X LEVERAGE ON BITMEX YESTERDAY.
NOW I'M FUCKING LIQUIDATED..AGAIN..
I'M DONE WITH CRYPTO FOR GOOD. I'M NEVER DEPOSITING "JUST ANOTHER $1000" ON BITMEX. FUCK THIS FUCKING SCAM.
— Ameba (@Ameba_NM) March 19, 2024
BitMEX Investigating the Sudden Dump
“We launched an investigation as soon as we saw unusual activity on our BTC-USDT spot market. All of our systems were operating as normal, but we identified aggressive selling behavior involving a very small number of accounts widely beyond expected market ranges. We can’t comment on any specific behavior of a user or actions taken, and we continue to investigate,” BitMEX stated in a statement.
The exchange also noted that operations have returned to normalcy on its platform and that customer funds are safe.
The last glitch of this nature was last seen when Ripple’s XRP dumped $50 on Gemini after the exchange relisted the token in August.
