TLDR
- Four whale wallets made $47.5 million in profits by driving XPL token up 200% to $1.80 in minutes on Hyperliquid
- The price manipulation caused $17 million in trader liquidations, with one trader losing $4.5 million
- Hyperliquid confirmed no technical issues occurred and systems worked as designed during the event
- The platform will add new safeguards including a 10x price cap and external market data integration
- XPL prices varied dramatically between platforms, reaching $1.80 on Hyperliquid versus $0.55 on Binance
Four cryptocurrency whales executed coordinated trades that generated $47.5 million in profits while causing widespread liquidations on the Hyperliquid decentralized exchange. The trading activity centered around XPL, the token for the upcoming Plasma blockchain project.
🚨💥 Whale manipulation on #Hyperliquid sent $XPL soaring 200% to $1.80 in minutes earlier today, marking one of the wildest short squeezes and wealth redistributions we've seen!
Here’s the breakdown:
Manipulators' profits:
🔹 0xb9c (main orchestrator): +$15.11M
🔹 0xe41:… pic.twitter.com/KiWDybLJj9— Spot On Chain (@spotonchain) August 27, 2025
The largest whale wallet made over $15 million in profits by driving XPL prices from under $1 to $1.80 within minutes. Blockchain analyst Spot On Chain identified this wallet as the “main orchestrator” of the price movement.
The rapid price surge forced Hyperliquid’s systems to shift from standard liquidations to auto-deleveraging procedures. Over $17 million worth of trader positions were eliminated during the event, with most losses occurring on short positions.
One trader suffered a $4.5 million loss on their XPL position. Another trader, known as CBB on social media, reported losing $2.5 million and stated they would avoid isolated markets in the future.
The whales cleared the entire order book for XPL perpetual contracts. This action triggered a chain reaction that liquidated multiple traders who had bet against the token’s price.
Price Discrepancies Across Platforms
XPL trading showed dramatic price differences between platforms during the event. While Hyperliquid saw prices reach $1.80, Binance’s pre-market trading only peaked at $0.55 for the same token.
The price manipulation allegations stem from the coordinated nature of the trades. Four specific wallet addresses were identified as working together to drive up XPL prices through large buy orders.
Plasma, the project behind XPL, is a stablecoin-focused Layer 1 blockchain backed by Bitfinex. The project raised approximately $373 million in a public sale during July 2024.
XPL currently trades on pre-listing venues before its official launch. These pre-market contracts allow traders to speculate on token prices before actual distribution begins.
Platform Response and New Measures
Hyperliquid confirmed through its official Telegram channel that all systems operated correctly during the event. The platform stated that no technical failures occurred and no bad debt was created.
The exchange uses isolated margin for its pre-launch contracts, meaning XPL losses did not affect other trading positions. This design prevented the liquidation event from spreading to other markets on the platform.
Hyperliquid announced two new safeguards in response to the incident. The first will cap pre-launch perpetual prices at 10 times the 8-hour exponential moving average.
The second update will incorporate external market data from other platforms like Binance into price calculations. This change aims to prevent extreme price divergences between different trading venues.
The platform emphasized that users received warnings about low liquidity and high volatility risks in pre-launch markets. All affected positions were liquidated according to documented procedures.
One blockchain analyst initially suggested Tron founder Justin Sun was behind one whale wallet but later retracted the claim. The analyst apologized for the incorrect analysis and confirmed Sun was not involved.
Despite the liquidation event, Hyperliquid’s native HYPE token rose over 10% to reach new highs above $51. The platform continues operating with increased trading volume following the incident.
