A surge in volatility on Bitfinex led to a sharp distortion of prices in the BTC-PERP perpetual futures pair. While spot Bitcoin was trading around $85,000, the futures contract recorded an anomalous price spike, briefly reaching $153,960.
Seconds later, the price returned to market levels, and the BTC-PERP contract is currently trading around $85,038, with a 24-hour gain of 5.55%.
A sharp price spike to $153,960 on the BTC-PERP contract on Bitfinex, Source: Bitfinex Derivatives
The incident was isolated and was caused by a liquidity shortage on the specific exchange. The BFX composite spot price index remained stable during the squeeze and did not exceed $84,406, confirming the absence of similar movements in the spot market.
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Mechanics of panic: Where did the $155,000 price come from?
The main trigger behind the vertical spike may have been a massive cascade of forced liquidations. According to Coinglass data, over the past 24 hours, the leveraged positions of 117,116 traders were liquidated across the market, totalling $688.07 million.
The single largest liquidation order during this 24-hour period occurred on the Binance exchange, involving a BTC/USDT contract valued at $11.29 million.
The majority of losses came from short positions, which accounted for $598.27 million. Bitcoin alone saw $354.93 million in liquidations, of which $338.15 million came from short positions.
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Under this scenario, a local upward price movement could have triggered the automatic execution of protective orders, forcing traders to buy back their short positions at market prices.
In the conditions of a thin Bitfinex order book, an avalanche of such buy orders can instantly absorb the available limit orders, typically leading to a short-term liquidity vacuum and sending prices soaring to nearly $155,000. The entire anomaly lasted less than a minute before regional arbitrage bots stepped in to flatten the discrepancy.
The incident does not affect the broader market trend, but it once again illustrates the risks of using high leverage in the cryptocurrency derivatives market.
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