On October 28, the price of HYPE from Hyperliquid on the decentralized exchange Lighter soared from $47 to $98 in just one minute, catching the attention of the community.
The prophecy of hype is being told by lighter
The pure poetry of it pic.twitter.com/6qzzVcuRRK— barthazian.eth 巴特 (@Barthazian) October 27, 2025
Some users speculated that the spike was due to whale activity. Others suggested a possible attack.
The Lighter team commented on the incident, stating that a trading bot error was the cause.
A runaway bot jammed through the HYPE book with size, there were no liquidations or other adverse effects beyond this. Low volume was traded at very high prices, leaving the wick in creates scaling issues for the chart so it was scrubbed from the front end.
— Lighter (@Lighter_xyz) October 27, 2025
“The incident was caused by an uncontrolled bot that aggressively traded large volumes in the HYPE order book. This did not lead to liquidations or other negative market consequences,” wrote representatives of the DEX.
A trader known as HypeTrader claimed to have made $600,000 from the error by shorting the Hyperliquid coin in time. He called it “blind luck.”
So long story short, $HYPE scam wicked to $100 on @Lighter_xyz and I was able to instinctively unload my 66K HYPE position on $LIGHTER from $49 for a profit of over half a million dollars.
These scenarios are just examples of DUMB LUCK and also being paid for paying attention at… pic.twitter.com/N0SsOpxXWD
— HypeTrader 娘逼 | Sniperliquid.hl (@MomentumKevin) October 27, 2025
Criticism
Lighter removed the price wick from the HYPE chart interface, citing “scaling issues.” The decision drew criticism from users.
An analyst under the pseudonym Duo Nine believes that the exchange team was trying to hide more serious liquidity issues.
You should just say your ordebooks are illiquid instead of censoring them to hide it.
You’re effectively lying to your users by doing this. If next time users get liquidated, what then?https://t.co/V2jb0b1Zun
— Duo Nine ⚡ YCC (@DU09BTC) October 28, 2025
“You should just say your order books are illiquid instead of censoring them to hide it. By doing this, you are effectively lying to your users. If next time users get liquidated, what will you do?” he wrote.
Similar sentiments were expressed by expert Tobias Reisner, who stated that “projects always find excuses to hide the truth.”
Back in late September, on the decentralized exchange Aster, the price of XPL from the stablecoin project Plasma suddenly jumped from $1.3 to $4. The cause was an error in the token’s perpetual contract.