Bitget's Bot Malfunction Turns VOXEL Into a $100 Million Free-for-All

Bitget's VOXEL/USDT trading pair turned into an unlikely goldmine after the exchange's own market-making software malfunctioned, executing a rapid, repeating trading cycle roughly every three seconds. The predictable pattern turned an otherwise obscure metaverse token into what amounted to a standing arbitrage opportunity.

Observant traders spotted the bot's mechanical rhythm and moved in with leveraged positions, reportedly extracting more than $100 million before Bitget stepped in, froze the accounts involved, and began reversing trades.

The fallout split traders into two groups: those who had already withdrawn their gains kept the money, while everyone still holding profits inside the exchange found their accounts frozen and their trades recast as "market manipulation."

The episode put Bitget CEO Gracy Chen in an uncomfortable spot. Weeks earlier, she had criticized Hyperliquid — calling it a "decentralized exchange in name only" — for reversing trades under comparable circumstances. Now she found herself defending the same approach after her own exchange's bot caused the disruption.

How it happened

The disruption began around April 20, when VOXEL — a metaverse token that normally attracts little trading interest — started swinging sharply in price. The cause traced back to Bitget's market-making bot, which had broken down into a repetitive, predictable trading loop — cycling through buys and sells in a fixed pattern every three seconds rather than responding to genuine market conditions.

Traders who noticed used leverage to amplify the opportunity, converting the bot's oscillations into outsized returns. VOXEL's 24-hour trading volume reportedly reached $12.7 billion — briefly surpassing Bitcoin's trading volume on the platform, even though VOXEL sits outside the top 700 tokens by market capitalization. Price during the episode oscillated repeatedly between roughly $0.125 and $0.138.

Results for individual traders varied enormously: one is reported to have made $42 million, and another reportedly turned $100 into $3 million. Bitget eventually stopped the bleeding, but not before its protection fund absorbed a nine-figure hit; total losses were estimated at upward of $100 million, though an exact figure was never confirmed.

The rollback and the reaction

Bitget's public response followed a familiar sequence: freeze the accounts involved, unwind the trades, and describe the episode as "abnormal trading activity." The exchange's official statement went further, describing the situation as one in which "Certain accounts potentially engaged in market manipulation" — even though the underlying price oscillation originated with Bitget's own bot rather than any external actor.

Community sentiment turned sharply negative. Social media filled with screenshots of frozen accounts, and critics pointed to Bitget's closed market-making system — which excludes third-party liquidity providers — as the structural weakness that let the malfunction go unchecked. Some commentators drew a direct comparison, with one warning that "Bitget may be the next FTX!!" — a claim that drew skepticism but reflected how quickly confidence eroded after the incident.

The cleanup

Bitget's remediation centered on its $300 million protection fund, earmarked to cover user losses from the incident. Bitget's official notice read: "To ensure a fair and secure trading environment, Bitget will initiate a rollback of irregular trades within 24 hours." Affected users were told they could "contact Bitget's official support and submit a ticket for further assistance" to pursue compensation.

The exchange's own explanation for the cause shifted over time — from "abnormal trading activity," to "potential market manipulation," before finally settling on an account of a bug in the VOXEL/USDT market-making bot that produced an endless arbitrage loop. Gracy Chen's public statements described the exchange as "actively managing the incident," "restoring access," and "strengthening risk control systems," alongside a pledge to introduce additional safeguards.

Left open is the question of how many other trading pairs on Bitget rely on similar automated market-making infrastructure, and what would happen if one of them failed the same way.