I was wondering what could motivate somebody to dump so much ETH at the same time.
Well, it's clear that the people who most benefited from the flash crash were those who had buy orders at an unreasonably low price. Normal people, who are just trying to buy ETH would not set the price too low because they would never get to buy any. So, people would only set such a low buy price, if they have anticipated the crash.
Here's what I suspect:
- The attacker placed buy orders at a very low prices. Could be many orders, at different price levels.
- The attacker dumped a lot of ETH at lower prices, knowing and expecting that their sale will fill all buy orders, drive the price down, and cause the chain reaction that will trigger the stop losses thus further driving the price down.
- The attacker bought back a lot of ETH very cheaply effectively swapping their expensive ETH for lots more of very cheap ETH.
So, it seems like this was a deliberate attack to me.
Comments?