HyperLiquid, a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange, announced today that it has temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals on the POPCAT trading pair due to suspected price manipulation.
POPCAT was recorded as one of the altcoins that experienced the most liquidations due to the massive pump and dump wave experienced today.
Chart showing POPCAT pump and dump prices.
The platform appears to have stopped operating for maintenance. On-chain data from ArbiScan also confirmed the suspension. But what really caught the attention of the community were claims that users were trying to artificially inflate the price of POPCAT.
On-chain analyst MLMabc shared a post on Twitter stating that the investor in question withdrew 3 million USDC from the OKX exchange 13 hours ago and split it into 19 different wallets. He then opened a long position worth around $20 million on POPCAT, attempting to push the price to $0.21.
According to the analyst, once the buy wall was lifted, the investor liquidated his entire POPCAT position between $20 million and $30 million, resulting in a $4.9 million loss on the position taken over by HyperLiquid's liquidity provider (HLP). Hyperliquid then manually closed the position.
This incident is reminiscent of a similar manipulation incident Hyperliquid experienced with its Solana meme coin called JELLYJELLY in March. At the time, the platform had approximately $12 million in unrealized losses.
*This is not investment advice.
