Recently, a high-yield stablecoin activity launched by a major exchange triggered a classic market blunder. The entire chain of events is actually quite interesting and worth dissecting.

The incident started like this: the platform launched a stablecoin financial product with an annualized return of 20%, but the quota was limited to only $50,000. This attractive condition drew a large number of users rushing in, exchanging USDT for the new currency to compete for the quota. Suddenly, supply became tight, and this stablecoin was trading at a short-term premium of 0.39%—which is quite volatile for a coin that should theoretically be stable in price.

敏锐的套利者立刻看到了机会。有人通过VIP账户借入这种稳定币，然后分批卖给那些理财的用户，吃掉中间的价差。一切本来都在掌控中。

But then the turning point occurred. A trader perhaps wanted to quickly profit by exchanging BTC for this stablecoin, but he chose the wrong trading pair—he selected a BTC trading pair instead of the mainstream USDT pair. Even more disastrously, a slip-up turned a planned small order into a massive market order. Due to the extremely thin liquidity of this trading pair—only a few tens of thousands of dollars in depth—the order instantly pushed the price to an outrageous $24,000.

不过故事没有往悲剧发展。套利机器人迅速反应，秒速吃下全单并套利，价格立刻回弹。整个闪崩过程只持续了几秒钟，主流BTC/USDT交易对甚至几乎没有受到波澜。

The story didn't turn into a tragedy. Arbitrage bots reacted swiftly, instantly filling the entire order and profiting from the difference, causing the price to rebound immediately. The entire flash crash lasted only a few seconds, and the mainstream BTC/USDT trading pair was hardly affected.

这次事件的教训很清楚：真正的市场大跌很难在小对子上演，因为流动性会立刻被套利力量填补。下次遇到极端价格时不用太惊慌，先看清楚交易对和深度再说。

The lesson from this event is clear: a true market crash is hard to play out on small pairs because liquidity is quickly filled by arbitrage forces. Next time you encounter extreme prices, don’t panic—first check the trading pair and depth carefully.