The Wick at Three in the Morning

The liquidation happened at 3:06 a.m. ETH first went flat for less than a minute, then suddenly punched downward, as if someone had shoved an entire glass wall over. The wick was so short that on a closing basis it almost looked like nothing had happened. But for a leveraged position, it was fatal. Pei Yanzhou’s phone buzzed once, then twice, then a third time. The exchange push notifications arrived like a sentence being read aloud: `Your position has been liquidated.` `Insufficient margin. Position auto-closed.` `Current balance: $1,274.36` He stared at the number and did not immediately break. Instead, he felt emptied. What came first was not crying or shouting, but a strange, absurd calm.