- The latest crypto news covers how a trader on the Binance exchange earned $1.5 million in less than 24 hours after spotting an unusual wall of buy orders.
- The trader explained that he was running a funding rate arbitrage strategy at the time.
- His algorithm held a $500,000 short position in BROCCOLI714 perpetual futures on Binance
A crypto trader, known as Vida, made more than $1.5 million after spotting an unusual wall of buy orders on Binance on New Year’s Day. The activity centered on BROCCOLI714, a little-known token that suddenly drew heavy buying interest.
Vida later shared detailed trade logs on X, explaining that his first reaction was caution. The buying pattern, he said, appeared to be either a hacked account or a malfunction in a market-making system.
Due to this uncertainty, he adjusted his strategy in stages. He first reduced a large spot and futures position as prices surged. Once the rally showed signs of strain, he switched direction and shorted the token.
Crypto News: Crypto Trader Spotted a $26 Million Anomaly to Make $1.5 Million
Vida explained on an X post that he was running a funding rate arbitrage strategy at the time. His algorithm held a $500,000 short position in BROCCOLI714 perpetual futures on Binance, balanced by a matching long position in the spot market.
Under normal conditions, the setup delivers steady, low-risk returns. The profits come from collecting funding fees paid by traders using leverage. That changed at around 4 a.m. on New Year’s Day.
Vida said his alert systems suddenly lit up. Both his short-term price surge alerts and his spot-to-futures spread alerts were firing at once. He rushed to his screen and instinctively considered shutting down the position.
What he saw was disorder. The original $500,000 hedge had spun out of balance. The spot position had jumped to about $800,000, while the futures side lagged far behind.
However, the price action did not match anything he had seen before. In his experience, large players do not ignore spreads and aggressively push spot prices without a plan.
A closer look at the order book revealed why. On Binance’s spot market, a single buyer had stacked nearly $26 million in buy orders within 10% of the current price. Meanwhile, the futures market showed barely $50,000 in depth.
For a token with a circulating market cap of around $40 million, that kind of buy wall made little sense. Sophisticated traders and institutions do not advertise their positions so openly. They usually enter quietly, spreading trades over time to avoid drawing attention.
Based on that, Vida concluded the activity was likely the result of a hacked account or a faulty market-making algorithm. To him, it did not look like the work of a rational whale.
How the Trader Did It?
Vida said that the situation was clear almost immediately. Whoever was behind the massive buy wall appeared to be pushing up the spot price to boost the value of their holdings before selling.
As long as the $26 million wall stayed in place, the price of BROCCOLI714 had only one way to move. Seeing this, Vida shifted away from his neutral arbitrage setup and took a directional long position.
The move, however, ran into Binance’s safety systems. The rapid price jump triggered automated circuit breakers designed to slow extreme moves and prevent forced liquidations.
While the spot price surged past $0.07, Binance’s futures contracts were capped at $0.038. The result was a wide and artificial gap between the two markets.
On other exchanges, the picture was different. Traders watching Bybit saw contracts trading freely around $0.055, showing the restriction was limited to Binance’s own risk controls.
The Trade
With that in mind, the crypto trader switched tactics. He began placing rapid-fire orders, trying to open long positions every few seconds while waiting for the circuit breaker to ease.
Vida said he was betting on a brief window. His view was that once the spot price settled at higher levels, Binance’s circuit breaker would ease, even if only for a moment. When his order finally went through, he knew the restriction had lifted, and the opportunity had arrived.
The plan worked. Vida built approximately $200,000 in long positions at an average price of around $0.046. At that point, he was riding the momentum created by the mysterious $26 million buyer, positioning himself ahead of what he believed was an inevitable reversal.
From there, the trade turned into a waiting game with Binance’s risk controls. Large and unusual orders do not go unnoticed, especially on thinly traded tokens. A buy wall of that size was bound to raise alarms.
If the exchange flagged the activity as a compromised account or a faulty algorithm, the orders would be pulled, and the trade would be over.
Vida Times the Exit as Buy Wall Vanishes
Vida kept his eyes locked on the order book. At one moment, the massive buy wall disappeared, only to return seconds later and push the price up to $0.15. The erratic moves were a clear warning that the end was close.
He said he knew how it would end. Once the account was restricted and the bids were removed, the price would collapse.
At 4:20 a.m., Vida exited everything. He sold his original holdings, closed the arbitrage hedge, and unloaded the speculative longs. The rapid exit locked in roughly $1.5 million in profit from an initial capital base of about $400,000.
Just ten minutes later, the support vanished for good. At 4:31 a.m., the $26 million buy wall was gone, and the market gave way.
Sensing the shift, Vida flipped short, opening a $400,000 position at $0.065. With the artificial buying pressure removed, the token fell fast, eventually settling near $0.02. He closed the short and walked away, having captured the full arc of the pump-and-dump.