Sahara AI Says SAHARA Token Volatility Was Driven by Leveraged Liquidations

Sahara AI said SAHARA token price volatility was caused by a chain reaction of leveraged futures liquidations amid thin liquidity, and that no team or investor tokens were sold or transferred. According to ChainCatcher, the project said it confirmed its token smart contracts remained secure and that designated market makers Amber Group and Herring Global operated normally during the incident. Sahara AI said that in the three weeks before June 9, leveraged long positions in SAHARA futures accumulated to a record high while liquidity stayed limited. It said selling pressure triggered large-scale automatic liquidations, peaking at $992,000 per second in SAHARA liquidations. The project said 60% of futures orders in the first two minutes were passive sell liquidations, and the futures price fell 64% within 5.5 minutes. It added that $60 million in futures orders were executed within 30 minutes. Sahara AI said the futures price at one point traded 27% below the spot price, which it said indicated liquidations were occurring faster than the market could absorb. It also said large on-chain token transfers were pre-arranged deposits to a Chainlink CCIP cross-chain bridge contract to provide liquidity for a BNB Chain bridge. Sahara AI said it is working with exchanges to determine the source of the initial selling pressure and will later publish final investigation results and additional measures.