While the broader cryptocurrency market rose on Wednesday, bitcoin It briefly fell 30% to below $48,000 on the Lighter decentralized perpetual exchange in a violent move that lasted seconds.
The sudden drop contrasted sharply with price action elsewhere. During the same session, bitcoin rose 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 poor liquidity amplified what would have otherwise been a routine trade. In shallow order books, even modest selling pressure can trigger exaggerated price swings, producing so-called flash crashes that do not reflect the broader market.
That’s probably what happened in Lighter. A single sell order for about 1,000 bitcoins, worth about $67 million at the time, wiped out available bids and briefly sent prices skyrocketing, 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 to ~$47k before instantly recovering,” 0xTimberJ wrote.
Lighter is a promising decentralized perpetual exchange looking to challenge category leader Hyperliquid. Perpetual futures, or “offenders,” have become the dominant derivative product of cryptocurrencies, allowing traders to use leverage and take long or short positions 24 hours a day without contract expirations.
The platform briefly captured significant market share last November, processing more than $292 billion in monthly volume, about a quarter of the $1.15 trillion traded on exchanges, according to data from The Block.
But activity has cooled sharply since its symbolic launch late last year. Traders ramping up activity for rewards have since rotated, with monthly volume falling to $70 billion in February out of a total market of $500 billion, behind rivals such as Hyperliquid, Aster and EdgeX.
