Decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Hyperliquid announced today that it has temporarily suspended deposits and withdrawals on the POPCAT trading pair due to suspicions of possible price manipulation attempts.
POPCAT was recorded as one of the altcoins that experienced the most liquidation with the massive pump and dump wave it experienced today.
It appeared that the platform had halted operations for maintenance. On-chain data from ArbiScan also confirmed the pause. However, what really caught the community's attention was the allegation that a user was attempting to artificially inflate the price of POPCAT.
Details of the Alleged Manipulation
Onchain analyst MLMabc shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) stating that the investor in question withdrew 3 million USDC from the OKX exchange 13 hours ago and split it among 19 different wallets. He then opened a long position worth approximately $20 million in POPCAT, attempting to push the price to $0.21.
According to the analyst, once the buy wall was lifted, the investor liquidated his entire $20-$30 million POPCAT position, resulting in a $4.9 million loss on positions taken over by Hyperliquid's liquidity provider (HLP). Hyperliquid then manually closed the position.
Precedent for Manipulation on Hyperliquid
This incident is reminiscent of a similar case of manipulation Hyperliquid experienced with a Solana memecoin called JELLYJELLY in March. At the time, the platform suffered approximately $12 million in unrealized losses.