Yesterday morning, ETH's performance was quite interesting——it shot straight from 3207 to 3383. This rapid 15-minute surge confused many people. There was no obvious positive news on the market to explain this move, but if you look closely at the order book details, you'll understand the pattern. To put it simply, this was a targeted "selective slaughter" against high-leverage shorts.

**Why can it rise so quickly without buy support**

It may seem like a 6% increase out of nowhere, but the behind-the-scenes driver isn't new long positions flooding in, but rather shorts being forced to exit. The prolonged period of sideways consolidation previously accumulated a large number of high-leverage short positions—everyone generally thought "it won't fall further, nor will it rise," so they dared to bet heavily.

Then, a large fund (possibly an institutional rebalancing or a quantitative strategy) suddenly launched, pushing the price past the key level of 3250. The first batch of high-leverage short traders began to be liquidated—systematically forced to sell their positions at market price. This might seem minor, but the multiplier effect immediately kicked in.

A's liquidation orders hit the market, pushing the price higher, triggering B's liquidation line, and B's forced sell orders followed. One after another, like dominoes, within just a few minutes, a vertical candlestick formed. Every forced liquidation automatically turned into a "market buy order," continuously driving up the price.

**Volume reveals the truth**

A detail worth noting is that the trading volume during this surge wasn't particularly large. Normally, such a big increase should be accompanied by significant trading volume, but that wasn't the case. What does this indicate? It suggests a liquidity vacuum in the market.

At the moment of the vertical price spike, market makers (those algorithms constantly providing bid and ask quotes) would sense danger—the one-sided move was too fierce. If they continued quoting, they might be swallowed by this wave. So they quickly adjusted their strategies, tightened the bid-ask spread, or even temporarily withdrew liquidity.

As a result, a small amount of buy orders could cause large price swings because there wasn't enough selling pressure to absorb the moves. The entire market was as fragile as walking in a dry environment—just a little wind could kick up a dust storm.

The key characteristic of this kind of move is unpredictability and speed. Once the short squeeze begins, from pulling the trigger to the chain reaction completing, it can take just a few minutes. By the time you react, the move is already over.