Bitcoin (BTC) on the futures market of the Bitfinex crypto exchange briefly rose above $150k. What caused the jump—either a malfunction or a lack of liquidity during a large trade—was not officially reported.
Bitfinex — a major centralized crypto exchange launched in 2012. In the Coinmarketcap ranking, it ranks 12th with daily spot trading volume of about $570 million. Bitfinex management is affiliated with Tether, the company that issues the largest stablecoin, USDT.
On September 20, the price of Bitcoin on the BTC perpetual futures on Bitfinex briefly exceeded $150 thousand and then immediately collapsed back to previous levels, according to TradingView data. The exchange has not commented on this squeeze yet.
The incident could have been caused by a liquidity shortage. Price increases can trigger the automatic liquidation of short sellers’ positions, forcing them to buy back their positions at market prices. A cascade of such orders can instantly absorb supply, leading to a short-term liquidity vacuum and a surge in prices.
Similar jumps on crypto exchanges happen periodically, but different reasons are given. For example, in 2024, on BitMEX, when the market price of Bitcoin was around $60 thousand, the spot price in that moment fell below $9 thousand. The platform said then that the drop was caused by large sell orders for the coin.
A similar case occurred on Binance.US in October 2021, when the price of Bitcoin suddenly plunged by 87%—from $65 thousand to $8.2 thousand—and then recovered just as quickly. The exchange representatives at the time blamed the incident on an error in the trading algorithm.