The native token of the Hyperliquid platform, HYPE, briefly rose to $98 on Lighter, an Ethereum Layer 2 perpetual futures exchange, before plummeting back.
The Lighter team clarified that the spike was caused by bot activity, not genuine market movement. However, the incident has sparked notable criticism from the community.
What Caused the $98 HYPE Price Spike on Lighter?
The incident unfolded several hours ago. Screenshots circulating on X (formerly Twitter) showed a chart depicting HYPE’s price surging from approximately $48 to a peak of $98, forming a long green candle.
The spike represented more than a doubling of HYPE’s value, prompting immediate speculation. However, Lighter’s team swiftly attributed the event to a malfunctioning bot.
“A runaway bot jammed through the HYPE book with size,” the post read.
According to the exchange, no liquidations occurred and no users suffered losses beyond the temporary price distortion. To prevent scaling issues on price charts, Lighter removed the exaggerated wick from its public interface.
Furthermore, the team explained that on-chain records remained unaltered and accessible via block explorers. They positioned the removal as a user-friendly decision to prevent display distortions, noting that alternative frontends could opt to retain the data.
“On-chain data is not (and cannot be) modified and is on the block explorer for those interested. But as we operate the main front end, we make decisions on presenting charts in the way most helpful to traders,” the team noted.
The response elicited mixed reactions. Supporters praised the move as pragmatic.
“Perfectly reasonable to remove the wick from the frontend tbh,” a user wrote.
Nonetheless, criticism dominated the discourse. Many market watchers accused Lighter of undermining the principles of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Crypto analyst Duo Nine argued that the platform’s decision masked underlying liquidity issues rather than addressing them transparently.
“You should just say your ordebooks are illiquid instead of censoring them to hide it. You’re effectively lying to your users by doing this. If next time users get liquidated, what then?” he stated.
Another community member echoed these sentiments, calling the move an attempt to erase history.
“Removing the wick from the frontend is seen as ‘erasing history’ or ‘pretending it never happened,’ undermining trust in the platform’s data presentation. Labeling it a ‘runaway bot’ is a ‘cop out’ that shifts blame from Lighter’s core problems, like insufficient liquidity to absorb moderate orders without extreme wicks,” Hyperliquid Daily remarked.
The post added that while no automatic liquidations occurred, the sudden price spike reportedly triggered panic among traders. Some closed positions at a loss to avoid potential liquidations, while others may have gained unfairly from the brief market distortion.
As of Tuesday morning, HYPE traded around $47.8, with Lighter’s charts now reflecting a seamless baseline devoid of the infamous spike. Still, the incident has reignited concerns about liquidity and transparency across decentralized platforms. Whether it erodes trust in Lighter or catalyzes improvements remains to be seen.
