A few hours ago, the native HT token flash on the Huobi market crashed, destroying more than 93% of its value. Although it swiftly bounced back from the catastrophe, its price is still 20% below where it was before the crash.
In the early hours of March 10, HT on Huobi’s exchange dropped from a 24-hour high of $4.81 to a low of $0.31, according to data from the cryptocurrency price graphing tool TradingView.
Riyad Carey, a researcher at the financial data firm Kaiko, tweeted just before the crash that there had been around $2 million in sales in the five minutes before the first.
In the 5 minutes leading up to the $HT crash there was $2mn worth of sales compared to just $600k of buys on the main HT-USDT pair on Huobi pic.twitter.com/Z6sbgugSit
— Riyad Carey (@riyad_carey) March 9, 2023
This buy on the HT-USDT pair is much higher than the normal buy of $600,000.
The coin has recovered from a flash crash and is now trading at $3.81, according to CoinMarketCap, despite a 21% decline in the past 24 hours. In spite of this, the price is still 20% below where it was prior to the flash crash.
On the Huobi Global exchange, HT is used to lower trading commissions, buy VIP status packages, cast votes on exchange policies, and get cryptocurrency rewards.
The sudden price volatility was noteworthy because the token is one of the more prominent cryptocurrencies, with a market capitalization currently of approximately $617 million.
Justin Sun, the creator of the Tron blockchain, is a significant holder of HT and serves as Huobi’s chief strategy advisor. This has attracted investors’ attention. Sun immediately discounted the flash collapse.
He reassured users that the exchange and all monies were secure in response to the outpouring of anxiety on crypto Twitter.
We deeply apologize for the impact of the leveraged liquidation on the market caused by a few users, and in order to further improve the multi-currency liquidity of the @HuobiGlobal platform, we will set up a liquidity fund with an investment of 100 million US dollars.
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) March 10, 2023
He further explained that the crash may have resulted from leveraged liquidations caused by a “few users”, triggering a chain reaction of forced liquidations in the spot and contract HT markets.
Sun stated that Huobi would cover all expenses associated with user losses brought on by HT’s market volatility. Additionally, he declared the creation of a $100 million fund to increase multi-currency liquidity and made a commitment to update the cryptocurrency community on the flash crash disaster.
It’s interesting that Justin Sun’s recent stablecoin moves have been linked to Nansen, a blockchain data and research platform.
