A flash-crash wiped out nearly all of altcoin AB’s value on Binance Alpha before rebounding within minutes. Analysts now suspect a coordinated whale dump that exposed major flaws in on-chain liquidity systems.
At 01:27 UTC on October 9, chaos hit Binance Alpha 2.0.
The AB token, one of the platform’s top ten assets, collapsed 99% in two minutes during early Asian trading hours. Blockchain tracker Wu Blockchain confirmed the drop — from $0.0083 to a staggering $0.0000051 — wiping out nearly all of its market cap before rebounding just as fast.
Traders described the crash as “instant liquidation chaos.” Wallet imbalances, failed swaps, and liquidity mismatches spread across the exchange’s trading pairs.
“It was like watching an avalanche — and then it just snapped back,” one trader told ATH.live.
Crypto analyst Specter traced the event to two high-volume wallets executing consecutive sells on Binance Alpha’s V3 liquidity pool:
The combined sale — roughly $1.2 million worth of AB — detonated the pool’s liquidity.
A market observer noted that the pool held only around $600K in USDT near those price levels. Once that capital was drained, automated price ranges imploded:
“Once that $500K sell hit, there was nothing left in the pool. The last $80K cleared it out entirely. The algorithm had nowhere to go — it just fell off a cliff.”
This wasn’t a random glitch — it was a liquidity cascade, a known failure point in concentrated liquidity models.
When trading depth is shallow and most liquidity sits at higher price tiers, a few large transactions can erase stability in seconds.
Despite AB’s rapid recovery to $0.0084, the damage runs deeper. According to CoinGecko, over two-thirds of traders remain bearish, signaling shaken trust in Binance Alpha’s DeFi architecture.
Meanwhile, AB DAO — the project’s governing body — has stayed silent, offering no explanation or mitigation plan.
The flash-crash reignited a debate that DeFi veterans know all too well: liquidity ≠ stability.
“In DeFi, liquidity isn’t safety — it’s illusion,” one analyst said on Telegram. “One whale can move the market faster than the code can respond.”
Experts warn that without tighter liquidity controls or automated circuit breakers, algorithmic markets remain vulnerable to manipulation — especially when whale wallets dominate token supply.
While AB’s quick rebound softened the blow, the event exposed how even major DEX platforms like Binance Alpha can suffer on-chain flash crashes.
If the sell-off is confirmed as coordinated manipulation, expect Binance Alpha to:
Until then, traders are wary — and watching.
In DeFi’s high-speed world, the next flash-crash could be just one whale away.
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