- Justin Sun has a $1B position on Ethereum that if liquidated could have easily sent ETH below $1,000 according to sources.
- High profile crypto traders have reiterated their bullish positions with Justin Sun leading by example and buying hundreds of millions worth of BTC and ETH.
On Wednesday, a majority of coins turned red, losing over 20% of their value. Ethereum which has shown a lot of resilience above $2,000 over the past few months, for a brief moment sunk below this. According to data from Bybt, the market bloodbath has led to over 700,000 traders being liquidated and over $8 billion wiped out. The single largest liquidation is $67 million on Huobi-BTC.
But one liquidation has been of high interest to the crypto community after threatening to push ETH below $1,000. According to the Director of Product 0xHorizonGames, Philippe Castonguay, Tron CEO Justin Sun has a $1 billion position on the Ethereum-based Liquity Protocol.
There was about a 2 minute window where @LiquityProtocol went into recovery mode and @justinsuntron's $1B dollar position could've been liquidated, but it didn't happen🤷.
He just rebalanced his Trove 5 minutes ago, paying $300m back of debt.https://t.co/9hJ2b5yrrO
— PhABC (@PhABCD) May 19, 2021
Because of its sheer size, this liquidation would have flooded the market and sent ETH prices to the floor. Additionally, on its way down, it would trigger a series of other liquidations that would worsen the situation, possibly sending prices below $1,000.
Many people did not follow this tweet. Shenyu, China's DeFi leader, said that JustinSun's liquidation of 606,000 Ethereum may cause ETH to fall below $1,000. https://t.co/O59SuP9V5Y pic.twitter.com/EBKn6C6ThI
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) May 19, 2021
Although this situation did not play out, Castonguay clarified that he believes that prices wouldn’t have plummeted as Justin Sun’s ‘ETH would’ve been purchased by the Stability Providers at *market price*. Buyers would’ve met seller at the same spot price’.
Justin Sun buys the dip
High profile crypto investors have reiterated their bullish stand. MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor is one of them as he confirmed on Twitter he will not sell despite the drastic market fall.
Entities I control have now acquired 111,000 #BTC and have not sold a single satoshi. #Bitcoin Forever.
— Michael Saylor⚡️ (@saylor) May 19, 2021
Justin Sun also followed the same trend also reaffirming his commitment to the industry. However, the Tron founder went a step further to confirm that he purchased billions worth of BTC and ETH following the dip.
Sun said that he had bought 54,153 ETH at an average price of $2,509, spending more than $135 million. He also accumulated BTC, confirming the purchase of 4,145 Bitcoin at an average price of $36,868, spending over $152 million. Sun encouraged the community to focus on the long term objective, buy the dip and continue building.
I have bought many on a dip today, this is only my #BTC purchase. Keep BUIDLING, buy the DIP. https://t.co/SpzjWp8raK
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) May 19, 2021
Some investors have been critical of the founder after spending millions on BTC and ETH and leaving out Tron’s native coin, TRX, which has lost roughly the same value. At the time of press, TRX is down by nearly 20 percent pushing its weekly drop to over 30 percent.
In the last few months, TRX has struggled to keep up with top-performing coins and as a result, the once top-ten ranked coin has drifted away from the top 20 list with its market cap now just under $6 billion.