A liquidity void on Bitfinex sent the BTC-PERP perpetual futures contract to $153,960 for a few seconds while spot Bitcoin traded near $85,000. A cascade of forced liquidations likely drove the spike, and the contract corrected within a minute with no comparable move on the spot market.
A surge in volatility on Bitfinex distorted prices in the BTC-PERP perpetual futures pair, and the contract briefly reached $153,960 while spot Bitcoin traded around $85,000. Seconds later, the price returned to market levels, and BTC-PERP is now trading around $85,038, up 5.55% over 24 hours.
According to Coinglass data, 117,116 traders were liquidated across the market over the past 24 hours, totaling $688.07 million. Short positions accounted for $598.27 million of the losses. Bitcoin alone saw $354.93 million in liquidations, of which $338.15 million came from shorts, and the single largest liquidation order hit Binance, a BTC/USDT contract valued at $11.29 million.
A local upward move may have triggered the automatic execution of protective orders, forcing traders to buy back short positions at market prices. In Bitfinex's thin order book, a wave of such buy orders can instantly absorb the available limit orders, opening a short-term liquidity vacuum. The anomaly lasted less than a minute before arbitrage bots stepped in to flatten the discrepancy.
The BFX composite spot price index remained stable during the squeeze and did not exceed $84,406, confirming the absence of a similar move in the spot market. The incident does not affect the broader market trend, but it again illustrates the risks of using leverage in the crypto perpetual futures market.
Source: U.Today – IT, AI and Fintech Daily News for You Today
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