Trading platform Bitget has commenced reimbursing users affected by a significant glitch involving VOXEL/USDT perpetual contracts after abnormal price movements occurred on April 20.
On April 22, Bitget confirmed that necessary transaction rollbacks and account restorations were largely finalized. The exchange is now processing compensation for traders who suffered losses during the VOXEL futures incident. Additionally, Bitget acknowledged user feedback regarding potential errors in fee deductions and profit/loss calculations post-rollback, prompting a secondary internal investigation.
The disruption involving VOXEL/USDT perpetuals started around 8 a.m. UTC on April 20. The price of the gaming token VOXEL experienced an extreme surge, climbing over 200% within just 30 minutes. This brief but intense activity made VOXEL the most traded asset on Bitget for a period, with daily volume exceeding even Bitcoin (BTC) as its price fluctuated narrowly before hitting a peak of $0.1645.
Market observers suspect unusual market maker activity was behind the event, causing orders within a specific price band ($0.125 to $0.138) to execute instantaneously. Typically, perpetual futures rely on matching buy and sell orders in an order book. However, during this incident, trades seemed to bypass this mechanism, executing without the need for a direct counterparty.
This event highlights the critical need for robust exchange infrastructure to handle unexpected surges in trading activity, particularly in the fast-paced crypto derivatives market. In response to the volatility, Bitget temporarily halted trading for the VOXEL/USDT contract and suspended several accounts linked to the irregular trades. The exchange has stated the issue wasn’t due to a system hack or internal malfunction but has not yet identified the party responsible for the unusual futures activity.
VOXEL is the native cryptocurrency of Voxie Tactics, a free-to-play tactical RPG built on the Polygon (MATIC) blockchain. It serves as both a utility token and the in-game currency, central to the game’s economic system and player rewards.
Separate from the Bitget glitch, VOXEL gained significant attention over the weekend, trending heavily on major crypto tracking sites. The token saw a dramatic price increase, rising from approximately $0.02 on Friday to an intraday peak of $0.17 by Sunday – a remarkable 750% climb. While its price has since corrected to around $0.06, it remains significantly higher, up 200% from its Friday low.
This incident underscores the inherent volatility and technical risks present when trading lower-cap altcoin perpetual futures, where market depth can often be insufficient to absorb sudden large orders smoothly.