Bitcoin (BTC) Price Plunged 90% to $5,400 Due to Network Glitch, Here’s What Happened

Monday’s market crash resulted in billion-dollar liquidations in the crypto space. The Bitcoin (BTC) plummeted under $45,000 that day, however, a network glitch on the Pyth platform showed that the BTC price plummeted 90% dropping all the way to $5,400.

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The crypto data network Pyth is run by some of Wall streets biggest players. Besides, it provides industrial-grade pricing information for asset classes like stocks and cryptocurrencies. Some of its data feed contributors include giants like FTX, DRW, and the Jump Trading Group. Recently, Mike Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital also joined the Pyth Network.

For a very brief period on Monday, the Pyth Network showed the Bitcoin price as $5,400. The platform made an official statement through its Twitter handle that reads:

Between 12:21 and 12:23 UTC the Pyth BTCUSD aggregate price was below $40,000 – the lowest price reported was $5,402 with a confidence interval of $21,623 (4x the asset reported price) for a single slot – which was off-market relative to the BTC price available on other markets. Engineers are continuing to investigate the cause and a full report is in the works.

Things Have Returned Back to Normal

On Tuesday, things have returned back to normal. Besides, the Pyth platform has unveiled a root cause analysis of what actually resulted in the software glitch.

However, the problem wasn’t just limited to Bitcoin price reporting. Several Solana-based programs relying on the Pyth price were impacted by this incident. As Pyth reported:

The impact was exacerbated due to some programs relying on the aggregate price feed without using the confidence, which allowed liquidations to occur even though the published price was highly uncertain.

The entire Pyth network was down as a result of the outage. Bonfida, a project built on Solana, said that decline resulted in a series of liquidations on the Audaces protocol BTC-PERP market. Audaces is the perpetual futures platform on Bonfida.

About Author

Bhushan Akolkar

Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.