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Bitcoin (BTC) price tumbles below $48,000 on Lighter as $67 million sell order triggers flash crash

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Bitcoin (BTC) price tumbles below $48,000 on Lighter as $67 million sell order triggers flash crash

While the broader crypto market was ripping higher on Wednesday, bitcoin briefly plunged 30% to below $48,000 on decentralized perpetuals exchange Lighter in a violent move that lasted seconds.

The flash crash stood in sharp contrast to price action elsewhere. During the same session, bitcoin surged from below $64,000 to above $69,000, marking one of its strongest intraday rallies in weeks.

The extreme move appeared to have been isolated to Lighter, where thin liquidity amplified what would otherwise have been a routine trade. In shallow order books, even modest sell pressure can trigger exaggerated price swings, producing so-called flash crashes that don’t reflect the broader market.

That’s likely what happened on Lighter. A single sell order of roughly 1,000 bitcoin — worth about $67 million at the time — wiped out available bids and briefly sent prices spiraling, according to a Discord post by pseudonymous Web3 developer 0xTimberJ.

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“Because Lighter is a newer DEX with less liquidity than centralized exchanges, the sell order wiped out all available bids and pushed the price down to ~$47k before recovering instantly,” 0xTimberJ wrote.

Lighter is an up-and-coming decentralized perpetuals exchange seeking to challenge category leader Hyperliquid. Perpetual futures, or “perps,” have become crypto’s dominant derivatives product, allowing traders to use leverage and take long or short positions around the clock without contract expirations.

The platform briefly captured significant market share last November, processing over $292 billion in monthly volume — roughly a quarter of the $1.15 trillion traded across exchanges, according to data by The Block.

But activity has cooled sharply since its token airdrop late last year. Traders who ramped up activity to farm rewards have since rotated out, and monthly volume fell to $70 billion in February out of a $500 billion total market, trailing rivals such as Hyperliquid, Aster and EdgeX.

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Crypto World

Dormant Bitcoin Whale Wallet Awakens After 13 Years

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Dormant Bitcoin Whale Wallet Awakens After 13 Years

A long-dormant Bitcoin whale wallet has reactivated after 13 years and seven months of inactivity, shifting 0.00079 BTC ($56), a tiny fraction of a fortune now worth around $147 million. 

Onchain data from BitInfoCharts shows that the legacy address “1NB3ZX…” received 2,100 Bitcoin (BTC) on July 5, 2012, when BTC traded at about $6.59 per coin. At today’s prices, that stash is valued at roughly $147 million, turning an initial outlay of about $13,800 into an unrealized gain of more than 10,000x.

The move caught the eye of onchain trackers like Whale Alert and LookonChain that monitor so-called Satoshi-era addresses, a term often used for coins acquired in Bitcoin’s early years. 

BitInfoCharts shows the address was funded in a single large inflow on July 5, 2012, and then left untouched for almost 14 years.

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Satoshi-era wallet awakens. Source: BitInfoCharts

Traders debate diamond hands vs recovered keys

Bitcoin traders are split between reverence and speculation. Some praised the HODLer’s apparent discipline for holding through multiple boom-and-bust cycles without selling, “No leverage. No day trading. No stress. Just conviction and time. The hardest strategy is also the most profitable.”

Related: Bitcoin whales shift $100M+ as oil spike rattles markets

Others argued that a more likely explanation was that the owner recently recovered their seed phrase or private key, and was sending a test transaction before cashing out a meaningful amount.

Test transactions of a few tens of dollars are common practice among long-inactive holders, who often move a tiny amount first to confirm they still control the wallet and that the destination address is correct.

Traders will now watch closely to see whether the wallet sends more of its 2,100 BTC to exchanges or fresh addresses in the coming days.

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Satoshi-era whale echoes earlier $85 million move

The reawakened 2012 wallet follows another recent move by a Satoshi-era BTC holder in January. On that occasion, a separate address that first accumulated Bitcoin in 2013 transferred its entire balance of about 909 BTC (worth roughly $85 million) to a new wallet after more than 13 years of dormancy.

The whale locked in a gain of around 13,900x on coins originally bought for less than $7 each.

Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author