On March 26, according to on-chain analyst Yu Jin's data, a wallet address conducted a transaction with signs of market manipulation on Hyperliquid. This address may have mimicked the strategy of a previous "50x leverage whale", executing a short order of 398 million JELLY by withdrawing margin, causing Hyperliquid's HLP fund to record a temporary loss of over 10 million USD.
At 20:53, address 0xde9...c91 transferred 3.5 million USDC to Hyperliquid as margin and executed a short order of 430 million JELLY at a price of 0.0095 USD, with a total value of around 4.08 million USD. This was a high-leverage transaction aimed at betting on JELLY's price decline.
At 21:03, this address closed 30 million JELLY short at a price of 0.0103 USD and earned 310,000 USD in profit. Subsequently, they withdrew 2.76 million USDC in margin, causing the pledged assets on the platform to be insufficient to maintain the short position. Immediately after, the remaining 398 million JELLY short order, valued at around 4.5 million USD, was liquidated at a price of 0.0113 USD and taken over by Hyperliquid through the platform's liquidation address.
After the short position was liquidated, JELLY's price suddenly surged from 0.01 USD to 0.04 USD in a short time, causing Hyperliquid to suffer a temporary loss of over 10 million USD due to the devaluation of the short position taken over by the platform.
Based on the transaction progression, there are signs indicating this was an intentional forced liquidation plan. The executor may have deliberately caused the short position to be liquidated to transfer risk to Hyperliquid, then pushed JELLY's price on centralized exchanges to force Hyperliquid to close the position at a higher price, increasing the loss.
This event raises concerns about Hyperliquid's liquidation mechanism, where whales or organizations could exploit the margin system to manipulate the market. Without stricter risk control measures, similar forced liquidation tactics could continue to occur, affecting Derivative exchange operations.
