Crypto trader makes $1 million in less than a day

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Key takeaways

An anonymous trader made over $1 million in unrealized profit trading STRK with 3x leverage.
Starknet token STRK surged over 50 percent in a single day amid broader market gains.
StarkWare announced plans to transition Starknet into an independent Layer 1 blockchain.

A newly created cryptocurrency wallet generated more than $1 million in unrealized profits in under 24 hours by taking a leveraged long position on Starknet’s native token, STRK.

The anonymous trader opened the position on October 10 on the Hyperliquid perpetual futures exchange. Using 3x isolated leverage, the wallet bought 24.42 million STRK tokens with a notional value of approximately $2.9 million.

As STRK’s price climbed, the position’s unrealized profit reached about $1.05 million, lifting its overall value to roughly $4 million. The entry price was near $0.076, while the token later traded between $0.11 and $0.12, according to on-chain data retrieved from Lookonchain on October 11.

Market performance

STRK led the broader cryptocurrency market over the weekend, gaining more than 50% in 24 hours and roughly doubling over the preceding week.

The token briefly exceeded $0.12 before settling near $0.11, outperforming Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which remained relatively flat. By press time, the asset was valued at $0.11, up almost 30% in the past day, while on the weekly timeline STRK has gained over 110%.

Trading volumes surged into the hundreds of millions of dollars, while derivatives open interest rose more than 50% as leveraged traders piled in.

Catalysts behind the rally

The primary catalyst was an announcement from StarkWare, the company behind Starknet. On October 8, CEO Eli Ben-Sasson indicated at the Token2049 conference and in subsequent statements that the network was considering a transition from its current role as an Ethereum Layer 2 scaling solution to an independent Layer 1 blockchain.

The goal is to achieve full quantum resistance by 2027, ahead of Ethereum’s projected timeline of around 2029. Independence would give Starknet direct control over its consensus mechanism and cryptographic upgrades rather than requiring it to rely on changes to the underlying Ethereum network.

Concerns that advances in quantum computing and artificial intelligence could accelerate threats to existing cryptography also helped fuel the rally.

Other supporting factors included an October 5 mainnet upgrade that expanded the network’s proof capacity and a Bitcoin bridging incentive program offering fee waivers and airdrops to early participants.

On-chain data also showed consecutive days of net outflows from centralized exchanges, consistent with holders moving tokens into self-custody.

However, some analysts flagged elevated wash-trading volumes and pointed to a scheduled token unlock equivalent to roughly 1.27% of supply in mid-October as a potential source of near-term selling pressure.

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