A bold attempt to manipulate the price of meme coin Fartcoin ended in a spectacular blow-up. A cluster of wallets built a $145.24 million long position on Hyperliquid, the decentralized perpetual futures exchange, but the trade collapsed on July 22, sending the token down 50% in a single hourly candle from $0.2519 to $0.1244. The entity behind the wallets lost roughly $3 million in the process.
The Token: From Fart Sounds to $1B Open Interest
Fartcoin, a Solana-based meme coin minted on Pump.fun in October 2024 for 2 SOL, has no intrinsic value. Its novelty feature—a digital flatulence sound on each trade—helped it build a cult following, pushing it into the top 100 tokens by market cap and top 10 by derivatives open interest, which peaked at over $1 billion.
Position Building: TWAP Orders and Two Wallets
On-chain data shows at least two wallets were involved. Address 0x511c accumulated tokens via TWAP orders, averaging $0.248 per token, while address 0x71c97d opened longs at around $0.205. Together, they helped push Fartcoin from roughly $0.16 to $0.25 over several days—a move the position itself likely fueled given thin liquidity. It remains unclear whether the wallets belong to the same person or a coordinated group.
Liquidation Chain: 28M and 30M Tokens Wiped Out
The unwind came fast. Address 0x511c was fully liquidated first, with 28.16 million FARTCOIN and a separate 6.7 million FARTCOIN-USD position closed at $0.2155, totaling roughly $1.45 million. Address 0x71c97d then saw two liquidation fills: 29.98 million tokens at $0.1822 and 7.49 million at $0.1880, totaling roughly $6.87 million. That wallet now holds just $35,074.
Auto-Deleveraging Kicks In
The liquidation was so massive relative to the order book that Hyperliquid's auto-deleveraging mechanism activated, forcibly closing profitable short positions on the other side to prevent bad debt accumulation. The episode highlights the extreme risks of leveraged manipulation in low-liquidity meme coins.