Original author: Fairy, ChainCatcher
Original editor: TB, ChainCatcher
Screenshots of profits and videos of contract operations were widely circulated on social platforms, quickly stirring up a wave of emotions in the entire community.
A thrilling arbitrage game suddenly appeared in the VOXEL perpetual contract on Bitget. This feast that seemed to be a wool falling from the sky eventually became the focus of a storm. In just a few hours, from the surge in trading volume to the soaring funding rate, to risk control restrictions and transaction rollbacks, the whole incident was full of controversy and countless questions.
This article will sort out the events, analyze the arbitrage path and Bitgets funding rate mechanism, and clear up the confusion for everyone.
A wool carnival set off a storm across the Internet
On the afternoon of April 20, the VOXEL/USDT perpetual contract on the Bitget trading platform suddenly soared, with the price fluctuating violently between $0.125 and $0.148. The trading volume instantly increased, and the VOXEL contract trading volume on that day once exceeded $12.7 billion, surpassing the mainstream currencies on the platform.
During this period, Bitgets contract holdings and trading volumes far exceeded those of other exchanges.
The community began to suspect that there might be loopholes in Bitget’s market maker robot, which continued to match orders incorrectly, causing liquidity anomalies.
At the same time, many KOLs and community users have posted that the contract may have a risk-free arbitrage window, and some people have achieved huge profits in a short period of time through high-frequency operations. It is said that some users have repeatedly traded with 100 USDT principal and made a profit of more than 100,000 USDT; some users have made a profit of 7,000 USDT with 200 USDT, with a yield of up to 35 times. Various profit screenshots and operation videos spread rapidly on social platforms.
However, many users soon found that their accounts were frozen and they could not withdraw funds. Bitget later responded that some accounts were temporarily restricted due to risk control triggered by trading behavior. In the evening, Xie Jiayin, the Chinese head of Bitget, said that some accounts have completed transaction rollbacks and restored trading, deposit and withdrawal functions. If the risk control restrictions lead to a liquidation, the platform will be fully responsible.
So far, the controversy surrounding arbitrage, mechanisms, and platform handling methods has continued to ferment in the community.
“VOXEL” path breakdown
In addition to the community controversy, the arbitrage path of 100 U turns into hundreds of thousands of U is also eye-catching. According to the community user @suwanyu 7777, the entire operation logic is not complicated. The key is to take advantage of the violent fluctuations of prices in a specific range and cooperate with the abnormalities of the platforms market-making system to achieve profit harvesting.
1. Lock the abnormal oscillation range
First, some users observed that the price of VOXEL/USDT contracts fluctuated rapidly in a fixed range (such as $0.135-0.148), and the trading volume was greatly increased. This anomaly may be due to a malfunction in the algorithm of the market maker robot, which caused it to continue to place wrong orders and automatically trade in this price range, thus opening a window for risk-free arbitrage.
2. Set up trading strategy
Arbitrageurs usually use high leverage with a simple strategy path:
Build long positions at low levels: For example, open a long order at $135;
Set a high take profit: Set a take profit level at $148;
Fast transaction to lock in profits: Due to the continuous matching of orders by the market making system errors, the take-profit order can be executed almost within seconds.
For example, a user mentioned that if you open a long position at $0.135 and take profit at $0.148, the robot will automatically take the order to achieve quick profit.
3. High-frequency compound interest operation
As prices fluctuate frequently within a specific range and the robot continues to cooperate, users can repeatedly open longs and take profits, locking in small profits each time. Through high-frequency trading, profits accumulate quickly.
“Amplifier” Funding Rate
Behind this arbitrage feast, the funding rate of VOXEL contracts also experienced extremely abnormal fluctuations. At one point, it soared to the top level of -2%, far exceeding the common normal range of 0.01% to 0.1%. After the incident, the community discussed Bitgets funding rate. In order to clarify this mechanism, we consulted the relevant instructions on Bitgets official website.
Its funding rate consists of two parts: interest rate (I) and premium index (P), and a buffer zone of ± 0.05% is set. At the same time, the upper and lower limits of the funding rate are set to restrict the occurrence of extreme values.
The core formula is:
Funding rate (F) = Clamp ([Average Premium Index (P) + Clamp (Interest Rate (I) - Average Premium Index (P), -0.05%, 0.05%)], Funding rate lower limit, Funding rate upper limit)
Among them, the premium index measures the degree of deviation of market buying and selling orders relative to the index price:
Premium Index (P) = [Max(0, Impact Buy Price - Index Price) - Max(0, Index Price - Impact Sell Price)] / Index Price
The interest rate is set dynamically at time intervals:
Interest rate (I) = (0.03%)/funding interval, funding interval = 24/funding interval time
The core of Bitgets mechanism is the weighted average premium principle, which calculates the interest rate and the average premium index per minute, and then calculates the weighted average per minute every N hours. The closer to the settlement time, the greater the coefficient of the premium index. In the end, the funding fee paid or obtained by the user is equal to the position value × funding rate.
However, under extreme emotions and high leverage, this mechanism, originally designed for price anchoring, may also become an amplifier of market sentiment. When the funding rate drops to -2%, the profit space for arbitrageurs is greatly magnified, attracting more speculators to flock in, forming a spiral acceleration.
The path of trust in crisis
Since the incident, a large number of online public relations consultants have emerged on the X platform, offering Bitget a crisis management guide: some suggest that the platform roll back funds to compensate damaged users, set up a BGB mining pool, and distribute the remaining funds to BGB holders to demonstrate the platforms responsibility; others suggest that the market makers operational errors should be frankly explained, and the damaged users should be compensated, while the abnormally profitable accounts should be resolved through negotiation between the market maker and the user.
In addition, there are many voices proposing constructive ideas around enhancing user stickiness, such as: retaining accounts that are normally profitable within a certain fluctuation range, and considering settling frequent high-frequency arbitrage behaviors in the form of partial profit + BGB installment unlocking; at the same time, it is recommended to set up a platform optimization suggestion fund to reward users who report abnormal mechanisms or loopholes, thereby guiding the community to jointly build an ecosystem.
Public opinion is still fermenting, but behind the storm also reflects users higher expectations for the platform. In a high-leverage, fast-paced market, even a tiny crack may trigger the next storm. Only by continuous learning and active evolution can the platform maintain its course between risk and trust.
