Whale Faces $1.96 Million Loss After Potential Liquidation of $PENDLE Tokens
Once again, the unstable cryptocurrency world has demonstrated its unpredictability, with one whale investor heading for a significant financial loss after an attempt to liquidate $PENDLE tokens.
This move comes after months of gains, followed by a sharp reversal that has left this whale in a hard place. The account address 0x97e…9D617 made a significant entry into the $PENDLE market eight months ago and is now suspected to have liquidated approximately 851,000 tokens just an hour ago. If the account owner went through with the transaction (likely an obsessive-compulsive effort to reclaim a clean ledger), the liquidation could result in a mind-boggling $1.958 million loss.
A Rocky Journey for the Whale’s $PENDLE Investment
The tale starts eight months back when 0x97e…9D617 took a position in $PENDLE, a decentralized finance (DeFi) token, acquiring the asset at a starting price of $4.39 per token. The value of $PENDLE oscillated in the following months, enabling the whale to observe their holdings swell. At the zenith of their floating profit, the whale savored an unrealized gain of $1.08 million. This upward trend was likely expected to march on, riding the momentum of a market that seemed to promise even more sizable returns.
Nevertheless, similar to many investments in the cryptocurrency market, it was anything but a smooth journey. What transpired in the cryptocurrency market recently, particularly for assets such as Pendle, was best characterized as a price sell-off, and almost all assets within the blue-chip category were affected during this phase. A closer look at Pendle now reveals that it is being traded at around 52% lower than what it was purchased at back in its early offering days. The floating profit, at this point, has effectively morphed into a significant investment loss.
The whales are seeing huge paper losses from the sharp decline in crypto prices. One large Ethereum holder has seen the potential value of their assets drop from a gain of over $1 million to a loss approaching $2 million. When we say big money in crypto can move, this is what we mean.
A Forced Liquidation and the High Price of Risk
The whale’s attempt to mitigate further losses means that the sale of the 851,000 $PENDLE tokens would have resulted in a loss of approximately $1.958 million, at current market prices. This token sale is significant for two reasons: it’s a sale, not a buy; and it’s a big sale, about 6.9% of the total token supply. The sell-off was not greeted with enthusiasm, as the token price promptly dropped by 19% following the announcement. Following the price drop, the total losses incurred by the whale amount to around 41.6% of the whale’s initial investment. 40% of that token price drop occurred prior to the announcement and 60% during and after the announcement.
八个月前建仓 $PENDLE 的巨鲸 0x97e…9D617 疑似 1 小时前清仓割肉 85.1 万枚代币，若卖出将亏损 195.8 万美元
他的建仓成本为 $4.39，本次充值价格仅剩 $2.09，资产缩水 52%😵从浮盈 108 万美元到亏损，山寨钻石手日子不好过
本文由 #Gateio | @Gateio_zh 赞助 https://t.co/x4P6X84Spd pic.twitter.com/xbCQvQb99h
— Ai 姨 (@ai_9684xtpa) March 10, 2025
This liquidation is a risk primer for those who think they can time the market in the crypto space. Once profitable, the whale’s position is now a prime example of how volatility can take a promising investment and re-engineer it into a substantial loss. From the space where well-timed purchases seem to exist, the $PENDLE asset has declined in value by 52% since the price where the whale first acquired it.
This sort of volatility is a common theme across many cryptocurrencies, especially those in the DeFi sector. These are not your everyday investments and investors are not your everyday investors.
Of the 210 million current holders of various forms of bitcoin, blockchain-based assets, and cryptocurrencies, only about 21 million have so far invested in these altcoins. And yet when they price space, even within the largely speculative realm of crypto, they price space with their data-driven minds.
And here’s a wild thought. What if these crypto-forth-thinking folks were able to price the future of anything else as effectively as they price the way-forward for crypto?
Broader Implications for Crypto Investors
The situation of 0x97e…9D617 is anything but unique. It reflects the battles fought by numerous cryptocurrency investors who have suffered a spectrum of setbacks thanks to capricious market situations. Be it $PENDLE or some other DeFi token, the upshot is always the same: trying to time the market is a fruitless endeavor, and placing one’s chips on ultra-volatile assets can lead to any number of disastrous consequences.
Although the whale might have been hoping for a recovery in the price of $PENDLE, the decline in value has served —and is serving— as a reminder of the risks associated with this kind of trading. The once-promising position has quickly become a financial burden as $PENDLE has dropped from over $4 to just $2.09 per token.
Future investors in cryptocurrencies such as $PENDLE need to be ready for the nature of these markets, which can be unpredictable. Some of the profits looked fairly quick, but what was also evident was the potential for pretty-nasty losses. The always-present risk that investors in the cryptocurrency market take was on display for anyone with a stomach to watch or a heart to feel. And just imagine the terror those loss-takers felt when the most volatile DeFi tokens screamed past the stop-loss prices of their long positions.
Currently, the future of $PENDLE is not clear, and as we mentioned, the price is stagnant. To be honest, we’re not quite sure what to think. Pendle Finance’s loss in price is bad enough as it is, but the possibility that $PENDLE is just a gravestone for the future of Pendle Finance is also something we don’t want to think about. Pendle Finance doesn’t seem to be going away, so by logic, if we stick with the ideas we have thus far, it should regain at least some of the losses shown in the images above. Otherwise, what’s the point? But hey, it’s a wild world out there—what happened yesterday could happen tomorrow.
Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any Metaverse crypto coins.
