SAHARA plunges more than 60% as project denies insider sales, security issues
Sahara AI said a 600 million SAHARA transfer reflected planned Chainlink CCIP bridge liquidity provisioning, while the June 9 selloff triggered roughly $22.45 million in hourly liquidations and refocused attention on a June 26 token unlock.
SAHARA fell sharply on June 9, with market data in the two reports showing the token dropping roughly 59.5% to more than 60%, touching prices cited between about $0.01545 and $0.01549 during the selloff, while earlier intraday readings in separate reporting also noted levels such as $0.03468 and $0.07. The plunge drove heavy forced liquidations, with CoinGlass data showing about $22.45 million in SAHARA positions liquidated over one hour, including $22.25 million of longs, making it the largest source of hourly crypto liquidations and roughly twice Ethereum’s $10.62 million. Sahara AI said it found no token-contract or protocol security issues and denied that any team or investor tokens were sold or moved. The project said the large on-chain transfers that alarmed traders were part of a pre-scheduled liquidity provisioning process for its Chainlink CCIP-based bridge between Ethereum and BNB Chain, involving 600 million SAHARA tokens, with another 150 million reserved for future bridge liquidity operations. Attention has since shifted to a scheduled June 26 unlock of about 1.03 billion SAHARA tokens.
- liquidations: Forced closing of leveraged positions when traders can no longer meet margin requirements.
- Chainlink CCIP: Chainlink's cross-chain interoperability protocol used to move data and assets between blockchains.
- token unlock: The release of previously restricted tokens into circulating supply under a vesting schedule.