The decentralized exchange Hyperliquid has suspended deposits and withdrawals due to suspicions of price manipulation involving the meme coin POPCAT.

According to on-chain analyst MLMabc, a trader may have deliberately targeted the platform.
Initially, an unknown individual withdrew $3 million USDC from the OKX exchange and distributed it across 19 wallets. The trader then began opening long positions on POPCAT, placing buy orders amounting to approximately $20 million at a price of $0.21. The total long position across the 19 wallets grew to about $30 million.
When the trader removed the “wall” of buy orders, his $20-30 million position was liquidated within seconds. The losses were transferred to the exchange’s liquidity provider (HLP), which lost $4.9 million. Later, the Hyperliquid team manually closed the position.
The analyst believes the trader intentionally sought to disrupt the perp-DEX, marking another such incident on the platform. In March, the exchange suffered from manipulations involving the meme token JELLYJELLY, resulting in unrealized losses of about $12 million for HLP.
According to The Block’s research director Steven Zheng, the incident highlights that Hyperliquid is not yet ready to compete with centralized exchanges. Despite its popularity, the platform faces numerous challenges.