Lighter's ARC rate has abnormally surged to an annualized 2100%, with a large whale heavily longing to lure short sellers in.

PANews reported on February 25th that, according to Route2FI analysis, a whale is holding a total of $24 million in long ARC positions on Lighter, and is continuously injecting $360,000 per hour through TWAP (time-weighted buy), driving the bullish trend. The whale has already made a profit of $5 million.

Analysis indicates that this whale's behavior is similar to the JellyJelly price manipulation incident on Hyperliquid. In March 2025, a whale on Hyperliquid simultaneously shorted the JellyJelly perpetual contract with large sums while manipulating the spot price through other accounts and on-chain mechanisms, causing short sellers to be liquidated. Hyperliquid's liquidity pool (HLP) suffered losses after settlement, prompting the Hyperliquid team to urgently delist the contract through a governance vote and force settlement at an extremely low price. Currently, the annualized funding rate for ARC contracts on Lighter has surged to 2100%, equivalent to short sellers earning approximately 5.7% in funding fees daily, which will attract more short sellers, intensifying the battle between bulls and bears.