Wintermute's Evgeny Gaevoy Attributes 8 Feb BTC and ETH Spot Price Spikes to Market-Making Bot Liquidation

Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy said on 9 February that unusual 1-minute spot price swings in Bitcoin and ETH during the early hours of 8 February were likely caused by the liquidation of a market-making bot, with potential losses reaching tens of millions of dollars, BlockBeats reports. He dismissed rumors of a large institution liquidation and noted that even if such an event occurred, it would not have medium- or long-term impact, unlike the Three Arrows Capital and FTX collapses. Gaevoy added that leverage in this cycle is concentrated in perpetual contracts and that trading platforms no longer deploy user assets into illiquid investments, while tighter credit has kept institutional borrowing below $2 billion, limiting the risk of cascading liquidations. Between 00:05 and 00:17 on 8 February, BTC and ETH spot 1-minute charts showed single-minute price swings exceeding 1% and reaching as high as 3%.