Sahara AI’s SAHARA token experienced a dramatic plunge of approximately 60% on June 9, leading to over $23 million in liquidations. The sharp decline fueled speculation across cryptocurrency markets, particularly as it coincided with a reported breach at the protocol Humanity, which resulted in a $30 million loss and saw its native H token shed nearly 90% of its value.
Volatility and Initial Response
Following the sudden drop of SAHARA from around $0.034 to $0.014, according to CoinGecko data, the Sahara AI team issued a statement on X (formerly Twitter). They acknowledged “unusual market volatility” and asserted that no security vulnerabilities had been identified within the platform’s token contracts or products. The team also committed to providing further updates as their internal investigation progressed and more information became available.
Addressing On-Chain Concerns
However, the initial explanation faced scrutiny when on-chain observers raised questions about a transfer of 600 million SAHARA tokens, suggesting it might have been the catalyst for the price anomaly. In response, the team released a follow-up post clarifying that the substantial token transfer was a pre-arranged operation to fund a Chainlink CCIP bridge contract, intended to bolster liquidity for their recently launched cross-chain bridge.
Crucially, Sahara AI emphasized that neither team nor investor wallets had been accessed on-chain, stating unequivocally that “no team and investor tokens have been sold or moved.” To support their claims, the team provided a link to an Etherscan address, inviting interested parties to verify the accuracy of their statements. They reiterated that their investigation into the root cause of the market movement was ongoing and separate from the bridge transfer.
Community Scrutiny and Market Impact
The validity of this explanation remains a point of contention within the community. Data from CoinGlass indicates that over the preceding 12 hours, long positions worth $22.9 million were liquidated, contrasted with only $354,000 in short positions. This suggests that the overwhelming majority of losses were borne by traders who had bet on an upward price trajectory.
The SAHARA token, which was listed on Binance in June 2025 and subsequently reached an all-time high of $0.1605 the following month, was trading at the time of writing nearly 90% below its peak. It had also seen declines of over 50% in the past seven days and almost 54% over the last month.
This recent downturn follows a pattern of significant price drops for other tokens. Just a week prior, EDGE, the native token of the edgeX decentralized exchange, plummeted by 71% to a new all-time low. Similar to the Sahara AI team, the edgeX developers denied any security breaches, attributing the collapse to external manipulation. However, this claim was publicly disputed by on-chain investigator ZachXBT. In a subsequent report, edgeX acknowledged that some centralized exchanges listing EDGE cited thin liquidity conditions, rather than large-scale selling by the team, as a contributing factor to the token’s collapse.
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