With a market value of only $40 million, why did such a huge buy order of $26 million appear?
Written by: Sanqing, Foresight News
At the start of New Year's Day 2026, the crypto market did not quiet down due to the holiday. At 3:00 AM today, the small-cap coin BROCCOLI714 on the Binance platform experienced extreme and abnormal price fluctuations. Suspected "abnormal account behavior" caused an imbalance in the token's order book structure and market depth, resulting in a significant deviation between spot and futures prices. Trader Vida (founder of Equation News) profited over $1.6 million in this incident.
Image source: Binance BROCCOLI71/USDT spot and BROCCOLI714USDT perpetual contract trading interface
BROCCOLI714 (CZ's Dog) is a community-driven meme token on the BNB Chain, inspired by "Broccoli," the pet dog of Binance founder CZ. 714 represents the last three digits of the token's contract address. There are multiple Broccoli-themed meme tokens on the BNB Chain, and the last digit of the contract address serves as a quick way to distinguish them. The project's official website and community later interpreted "714" as the founding date of Binance, and it was ultimately listed on the spot market through a Binance community vote (March 27, 2025).
As of press time, Binance has not yet responded to the incident.
Long-term ambush and early warning system
Opportunity always favors the prepared. In November 2025, the trader opened a position of approximately $200,000 in BROCCOLI714 spot at a cost of 0.016, and held a short contract position of $500,000.
Based on the cryptocurrency's previous market-making style of "rapid price increases followed by large bearish candles for distribution" in the past, a monitoring system was set up: "an alert will be issued if the price increases by more than 30% within 1800 seconds".
The unusual depth of the $26 million buy order
Starting at 3:00 AM Beijing time, BROCCOLI714 experienced unusual activity. Spot prices surged, prompting the monitoring system to issue an alert.
The order book shows signs of anomalies.
Deep inversion: There are $5 million in spot buy orders at a 10% depth, while the contract buy orders at a 10% depth are only $50,000.
Massive buy orders: Binance's spot buy orders totaled $26 million, while the cryptocurrency's total market capitalization at the time was only $40 million.
Three Steps to Achieve Million-Dollar Profits
Due to the huge price difference between spot and contract prices, the trader's original $500,000 hedging position saw its spot value soar to $800,000, while the contract position did not increase proportionally due to the circuit breaker mechanism.
If the arbitrage position were closed at this point, a profit of $300,000 could be realized. However, observing the order book depth, Binance's spot price had 5 million USDT in buy orders at 10% depth, while the futures price only had 50,000 USDT in buy orders at 10% depth.
Furthermore, BROCCOLI714, a cryptocurrency with a market capitalization of $40 million at the time, had 26 million USDT in buy orders. The trader deduced from this that either a user account had been hacked or there was a bug in the market-making program.
At that time, Binance futures triggered the reduce-only circuit breaker mechanism, and the price was forcibly controlled at 0.038, while the spot price had risen to 0.07.
Operation: The trader used the trading terminal to try to open a long position every 5-10 seconds, attempting to capture the moment when the circuit breaker mechanism refreshed or failed.
Results: The trader successfully added a $200,000 long position at a cost of 0.046. Subsequently, as the price rose to a high point, the trader gradually cashed out the initial position and the additional long positions, making a profit of approximately $1.5 million.
Image source: Tweet from the trader's platform account
The trader believes that BROCCOLI714 will immediately collapse once Binance's risk control department intervenes to restrict the abnormal account and cancel the orders.
Signal: 4:21, some buy orders were withdrawn and then bought back, pushing the price up to 0.15 USDT; 4:31, some buy orders were withdrawn; 4:32, all $26 million in buy orders disappeared and were not re-placing.
Action taken: After determining that the abnormal account had been restricted, a short position of $400,000 was opened near 0.065 USDT.
Exit: The price subsequently crashed as expected, and the position was eventually closed at around 0.02 USDT, resulting in a profit of over $120,000.
Image source: Tweet from the trader's platform account
The "Qualities" of a Trader
The trader's brilliant maneuver in the BROCCOLI714 incident was not simply a matter of luck, but rather a result of a combination of abilities.
Infrastructure capabilities: a comprehensive alarm system and high-speed trading terminals.
Market analysis: Able to quickly identify abnormal behavior from abnormal order book depth.
Risk control awareness: In extreme market conditions, not only do we see opportunities, but we are also clear about the timing of risk control intervention, thus completing a smooth transition from long to short positions.
Foresight News Risk Warning: Such extreme market conditions are accompanied by extremely high slippage and margin call risks. Ordinary investors should not blindly imitate these practices.
