Share this article
Bitcoin Price Flash Crash on Binance.US Attributed to Trader Algorithm Bug
It all happened in a blip, and an exchange official says the institutional trading customer has since fixed the issue.
By Brandy Betz
Updated May 11, 2023, 4:33 p.m. Published Oct 21, 2021, 6:26 p.m.
Bitcoin’s price briefly crashed 87% and then recovered within the span of a single minute early Thursday on Binance.US, in a fleeting but very real flash crash that the cryptocurrency exchange attributed to a “bug” in an institutional customer’s trading algorithm.
At 11:34 UTC (7:34 a.m. ET), the price fell from around $65,760 to as low as $8,200, then quickly bounced back up to almost exactly where it was before.
“One of our institutional traders indicated to us that they had a bug in their trading algorithm, which appears to have caused the sell-off that was reported this morning,” a Binance.US spokesperson told CoinDesk.
“We are continuing to look into the event but understand from the trader that they have now fixed their bug and that the issue appears to have been resolved,” the spokesperson said, declined to comment on further details about the crash.
On other cryptocurrency exchanges, bitcoin’s price dropped around the same time, but by nowhere near as much. On Bitstamp, for example, the price fell about 2.3% at 11:34 UTC but never got below $63,600.
Omkar Godbole contributed reporting.
More For You
Most crypto privacy models weaken as blockchain data grows. Encryption-based models like Zcash strengthen. CoinDesk Research maps the five privacy approaches and examines the widening gap.
Why it matters:
As blockchain adoption scales, the metadata available to machine learning models scales with it. Obfuscation-based privacy approaches are structurally degrading as a result. This report provides a comprehensive comparison of all five major crypto privacy architectures and a framework for evaluating which models remain durable as AI capabilities improve.
More For You
Bitcoin and other risk assets have been whipsawed by President Donald J. Trump’s shifting rhetoric on Iran. Here are some indicators that help cut through the noise.
What to know:
- Bitcoin and other risk assets have been whipsawed by President Donald J. Trump’s shifting rhetoric on Iran, but underlying oil-market fundamentals are turning decisively negative.
- Emergency releases from strategic petroleum reserves that have been offsetting the loss of Strait of Hormuz flows are likely to be exhausted within weeks,.
- Key...
Top Stories
