HT, Huobi’s native token, price crashed by 90% on Thursday: here’s why

• $2 million HT tokens were sold on Huobi prior to the crash.
• HT price momentarily dropped from $4.6 to $0.31.
• Tron’s founder Justin Sun is the largest holder of HT tokens.

HT, the native token of Huobi Exchange, crashed by over 90% on Thursday dropping to $0.31 from $4.6 in just 10 minutes.

Although the price has since recovered, the token was trading at $3.81, 21% down in the past 24 hours at press time.

What caused the brief HT price drop?

According to transaction data from Kaiko’s research analyst, Riyad Carey, more than $2 million HT tokens were sold on Huobi in the minutes leading to the HT crash. Justin Sun was also reported to have moved $60 million in USDT from Huobi to Aave.

Interestingly, Tron’s founder Justin Sun is the largest holder of HT tokens and serves as an advisor to the Huobi crypto exchange.

In the same period when HT price dropped by 90%, Tron’s token, TRX price dropped by 12% from $0.057 to $0.066.

Commenting on the spontaneous price plunge Justin Sun said:

“Few users triggering a cascade of forced liquidations in the spot and HT contract markets… We will continue to improve the liquidity depth of main cryptocurrencies and HT token, strengthen leverage risk warnings and liquidity capabilities.”

Sun also dismissed the price drop as a normal market occurrence and assured the Huobi community that Huobi operations are safe. He also said that he will create a $100 million liquidity fund for those impacted by the leveraged liquidation. He actually confirmed via Twitter that he has transferred $100 million in USDC stablecoin to Huobi.