In the Shadow of Greed and Folly
- Hyperliquid, that bastion of decentralized ambition, froze its veins of commerce after a cunning trader’s $3M POPCAT gambit unleashed a torrent of $25M in liquidations, leaving a $4.9M scar upon the HLP vault.
- With the precision of a cat burglar, the trader employed 19 wallets to weave a web of leveraged deceit, collapsing POPCAT’s price like a house of cards after withdrawing the buy walls-a maneuver as elegant as it was ruthless.
- POPCAT, that fleeting meme of the masses, plummeted 19% to $0.1262, as Hyperliquid found itself once more under the microscope of scrutiny, its leverage and risk management questioned by the very crowd it sought to empower.
On a Wednesday that shall live in infamy, the decentralized perpetuals exchange Hyperliquid was beset by a tempest of its own making, a deliberate assault upon the fragile edifice of trust by a trader wielding the memecoin POPCAT as a weapon of financial sabotage. 🤑
According to Arkham, that sentinel of onchain analytics, the trader withdrew $3 million in USDC from OKX, a sum as modest as it was malignant, and dispersed it across 19 wallets-each a pawn in a grand game of leverage and liquidation. With 5x leverage, these wallets amassed an exposure of $25-30 million, a mountain of risk built upon the quicksand of speculation.
Behold, a soul hath passed $5M of bad debt to Hyperliquid’s HLP, a vault of communal faith now tarnished by greed. 🕳️
This architect of chaos withdrew $3M from OKX, splintering it across 19 accounts, each a vessel for longing POPCAT with ~5x leverage.
These 19 accounts, like dominoes, fell…
– Arkham (@arkham) November 12, 2025
The trader, with the audacity of a circus ringmaster, erected a $20 million buy wall at $0.21 per token, a Potemkin village of liquidity designed to inflate the price of POPCAT-a memecoin as fleeting as a cat’s attention span. 😹
Yet, when the buy wall was withdrawn, the price collapsed with the inevitability of a tragic farce. Within minutes, the 19 wallets were liquidated, their positions absorbed by Hyperliquid’s Hyperliquidity Provider (HLP), a community vault now burdened with a $4.9 million loss. On-chain researcher MLMabc, with the wit of a modern-day prophet, declared it a “deliberate attempt to mess with” Hyperliquid-a sentiment as blunt as it was accurate. 🧐
Some 13 hours prior, a figure withdrew $3M USDC from OKX, dividing it among 19 wallets.
At 14:45 CET, this maestro of mayhem began longing millions in POPCAT, erecting a $20M buy wall at $0.21.
The long position swelled to $30M across those 19 wallets, a bubble destined to burst…
– MLM (@mlmabc) November 12, 2025
Hyperliquid, in a bid to staunch the bleeding, manually closed the positions, a desperate measure to stabilize the chaos. 🩹
A Pause, a Panic, and a Discord Clarification
As the drama unfolded, Hyperliquid halted deposits and withdrawals via its Arbitrum bridge, a move that sent ripples of panic through the community. Coinbase’s Director Conor Grogan noted the pause lasted over 20 minutes, a lifetime in the world of crypto. ⏳
An administrator on Hyperliquid’s Discord, the enigmatic ‘iliensinc,’ assured the masses that the blockchain itself remained unscathed. “The Arbitrum bridge’s automatic locking was triggered by a conservative set of conditions, and the bridge was unlocked after a thorough investigation within ~25 minutes. Funds are safe,” they proclaimed, a beacon of calm in a sea of uncertainty. 🛡️
The pause and its aftermath reignited debates about the fragility of decentralized systems, where manipulation in low-liquidity markets can cascade into systemic losses, even on platforms designed to resist such attacks. 🌊
POPCAT’s Plunge: A Meme’s Mortal Wound
The POPCAT token, a Solana-based memecoin that once basked in the glow of popularity, suffered a precipitous fall after the liquidation event. According to CoinMarketCap, its price dropped 19% in 24 hours to $0.1262, extending its yearly losses to a staggering 91%. Its market cap now hovers at $123 million, a testament to shattered investor confidence. 📉
Despite the decline, on-chain activity remained frenzied as traders sought to capitalize on short-term volatility. Yet, POPCAT’s liquidity thinned further, a harbinger of future manipulation attempts. 🌀
A Pattern of Predicaments
This was not Hyperliquid’s first rodeo with manipulation. In March, the platform faced a similar ordeal with the JELLYJELLY memecoin, where a trader shorted the token, saddling the HLP vault with $12 million in unrealized losses. The incident prompted calls for stricter risk management and led to JELLYJELLY’s delisting, a move criticized for its centralized governance. 🍇
DeFi’s Delicate Dance with Risk
The Hyperliquid-POPCAT saga lays bare the precarious balance between decentralization, leverage, and liquidity. While decentralized exchanges offer transparency and user control, they remain vulnerable to market manipulations and swift liquidations, especially in thinly traded markets. 🕸️
For Hyperliquid, this episode may prompt a reevaluation of its leverage model and risk management, particularly its community vault structure. For the broader DeFi community, it serves as a stark reminder of the dangers of unregulated leverage in memecoin markets, where speculation often outstrips stability. ⚖️
As of now, Hyperliquid has yet to announce a timeline for restoring deposits and withdrawals. For traders and investors, Wednesday’s events were a sobering reminder that in decentralized finance, manipulation and market shocks can strike with the speed and ferocity of a cat pouncing on its prey. 🐾
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2025-11-13 09:59