Hyperliquid’s decentralized exchange witnessed a dramatic price surge for the XPLUSD token, exceeding $1.80 in just five minutes from an initial $0.6 level. This spike, which affected only Hyperliquid and remained uncorrelated with Binance or Bitget’s markets, was linked to the actions of several wallets that profited over $46 million. Blockchain analysis reveals these anonymous wallets strategically accumulated long positions before the price jump, leading to cascading short liquidation events. While speculation about the motives behind this sudden spike is rampant, it appears that a few large whales used their significant market impact on Hyperliquid’s single-oracle design to manipulate the token’s price and profit from the resulting volatility. The incident highlights the complexities of decentralized platforms in managing market manipulation and potential risks associated with opaque practices.