POPCAT Meme Coin Plummets 25% After $30M Manipulation on Hyperliquid Exchange!

Jakarta, Pintu News – The DeFi market was thrown into chaos after Hyperliquid (HYPE) suffered a deep trading loss of $30 million, caused by a $3 million leveraged bet by a trader on POPCAT.

This move shook the market, as the meme coin Popcat (POPCAT) plummeted by almost 25%, dropping from $0.20 to $0.12, and causing more than $5 million in losses to the Hyperliquid liquidity pool (HLP).

What started as a daring trade quickly turned into a disaster.

The Setup Behind POPCAT’s Pump-and-Dump Trader

According to analyst DeFi Hanzo, the situation started when an unidentified trader withdrew around $3 million in USDC from OKX and deposited the funds into 19 wallets on Hyperliquid.

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Using 10x leverage, the trader opened a large long position on POPCAT, reaching almost $30 million in exposure. The move attracted attention among traders, as the price of POPCAT began to rise sharply.

However, that’s not all. To make these trades look legitimate, the same trader reportedly placed large buy orders worth $20-$30 million at an average price of $0.21 on other exchanges.

This move creates a convincing illusion of demand, luring retail traders to enter, without realizing that they are chasing a fake “buy wall”.

From False Requests to $5M Loss in an Instant

Once retail purchases picked up, the whale canceled all its fake orders, removing the illusion of demand. The market reacted quickly, and the price of POPCAT plummeted by almost 25% in a matter of minutes, triggering a mass liquidation.

The trader reportedly lost his entire $3 million collateral, while the Hyperliquid Liquidity Pool (HLP) was forced to step in to contain the impact of the losses. The system automatically absorbed the whale’s $26-28 million long position to prevent a wider market collapse.

At the end of this event, HLP suffered an additional loss of $4.9 million, forcing the platform to enter into full damage control mode.

Exchange Steps for Damage Control

To stabilize the situation, the Hyperliquid team intervened manually, closing the remaining positions and stopping their Arbitrum bridge to prevent further stress on liquidity. Despite this, deposits and withdrawals remained open.

Some users believe that this is a failed trade action, while others suspect that this is a deliberate stress test or an attempt to exploit Hyperliquid’s liquidity system.

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However, this marks the third major market incident for Hyperliquid in 2025.

Popcat Price Reduction of 25%

After the bungled trading incident, Popcat faced a huge liquidation wave, nearly $65 million in the last 24 hours, with around $62 million coming from long positions alone.

The sudden massive selling triggered panic, causing the token price to plummet from $0.20 to around $0.12.

The bearish sentiment now reflects a broader market trend affecting small-cap tokens. If the current support level fails to hold, analysts warn that the price of Popcat could fall below $0.10.

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*Disclaimer

This content aims to enrich readers’ information. Pintu collects this information from various relevant sources and is not influenced by outside parties. Note that an asset’s past performance does not determine its projected future performance. Crypto trading activities have high risk and volatility, always do your own research and use cold cash before investing. All activities of buying and selling bitcoin and other crypto asset investments are the responsibility of the reader.

Reference:

• Coinpedia. POPCAT Price Crashes 25% After $30M Manipulation on Hyperliquid Exchange. Accessed on November 13, 2025