While the broader crypto market edged higher on Wednesday, bitcoin briefly fell 30% to below $48,000 on decentralized perpetual exchange Lighter in a violent move that lasted a few seconds.
The flash crash was in stark contrast to price action elsewhere. During the same session, bitcoin rose from below $64,000 to above $69,000, marking one of its strongest intraday rallies in weeks.
The extreme move appeared to have been isolated to Lighter, where thin liquidity amplified what would otherwise have been a routine trade. In shallow order books, even modest selling pressure can trigger exaggerated price swings, producing so-called flash crashes that do not reflect the broader market.
That’s probably what happened on Lighter. A single sell order for about 1,000 bitcoin — worth about $67 million at the time — wiped out available bids and sent prices spiraling, according to a Discord post by the pseudonymous Web3 developer 0xTimberJ.
“Because Lighter is a newer DEX with less liquidity than centralized exchanges, the sell order wiped out all available bids and pushed the price down to ~$47,000 before recovering immediately,” 0xTimberJ wrote.
Lighter is an upcoming decentralized perpetuals exchange that seeks to challenge category leader Hyperliquid. Perpetual futures, or “perps,” have become crypto’s dominant derivative product, allowing traders to use leverage and take long or short positions around the clock without contract expiration.
The platform briefly gained significant market share last November, handling over $292 billion in monthly volume — about a quarter of the $1.15 trillion traded across exchanges, according to data from The Block.
But the activity has cooled sharply since its symbolic airdrop at the end of last year. Traders who ramped up activity to farm rewards have since rotated out, with monthly volume falling to $70 billion in February out of a total market of $500 billion, trailing rivals such as Hyperliquid, Aster and EdgeX.
