Bitcoin briefly crashes below $48,000 on upstart exchange despite crypto rally

• Bitcoin briefly plunged to $48,000 on decentralized exchange Lighter, even as it rallied above $69,000 on major venues.
• A single 1,000 BTC sell order overwhelmed thin liquidity, triggering a rapid 30% flash crash.
• Lighter’s trading volumes have fallen sharply since its token airdrop, leaving order books thinner and more vulnerable to price shocks.

While the broader crypto market was ripping higher on Wednesday, bitcoin BTC$67,354.42 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.

"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.

• Shares of Circle (CRCL), issuer of the USDC stablecoin, are now higher by 45% in the less than two sessions since its fourth quarter earnings report.
• Analysts pointed to a positioning-driven short squeeze rather than fundamentals as fueling the big move.
• Hedge funds have built up significant bearish bets against the stock and have lost roughly $500 million in this rally, according to 10x Research's Markus Thielen.

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