The drama in the crypto market never disappoints, and a recent large whale's massive liquidation has sparked heated discussions.

Last week, a holder with a position of 68 million ASTER across 15 wallets held on for nearly 8 hours but ultimately decided to sell. They sold 4.68 million ASTER at a price of $0.71 in one go, resulting in a loss of nearly $4.5 million. Moreover, this whale's average cost basis was $1.66, so the overall unrealized loss has exceeded $64 million.

The same story also happened to another whale—selling 3 million ASTER at an average price of $0.78, losing $667,000.

At this point, the market exploded with various analyses: is this a despair signal that the market has bottomed out, or is there something else behind it?

**Surface-level cutting losses, but there’s more to the story**

At first glance, it looks like panic selling, but from on-chain data, things are far from that simple. This isn’t malicious dumping; it’s a desperate, survival-driven liquidation.

Think about it from another angle: if you hold tokens worth tens of millions of dollars, but market liquidity has dried up, what would you do? Major holders who want to fully exit usually choose safer routes—private agreements or small batch limit orders. But this whale chose to sell at market price directly, which might be due to several reasons:

First, they might have leveraged positions close to liquidation; second, they could be under external pressure requiring quick cash; third, market liquidity might have deteriorated to the point where accepting a low price is unavoidable. In such cases, instead of passively being liquidated, it’s better to actively seek a relatively better price.

Anyway, this move sends a signal to the market: liquidity is tightening, and large holders are re-evaluating their risks.