Bitget Reverses Trades

Less than a month ago, Bitget CEO Gracy Chen warned that executing trades at off-market prices could turn an exchange into “FTX 2.0.” She was talking about Hyperliquid at the time. But now Bitget is doing the exact same thing.

After abnormal price spikes in the VOXELUSDT perpetual contract, the exchange announced it would reverse trades made during the anomaly. Bitget says it will compensate users who lost money due to the price swings.

But just like with Hyperliquid, they conveniently forget one thing: price anomalies attract arbitrage traders.

And arbitrage traders matter. They buy assets where prices are lower and sell where prices are higher. Their buying pushes prices up on cheaper markets, and their selling brings prices down on expensive ones. This is how prices align across platforms, making the market more transparent and efficient. Arbitrage helps eliminate distortions and bring about real market prices.

Many of the profitable trades on Bitget during the spike were offset by losses those same traders incurred on other platforms. Bitget surely knows this. By reversing profitable trades, the exchange isn't just erasing gains - it’s leaving traders with unrecovered losses elsewhere.

After the Hyperliquid case, I said that arbitrage traders would abandon the platform that pulls this kind of move. Apparently, they didn’t - and now other exchanges are taking notes.

But no - this can’t become the norm. Forcing trades on users is unacceptable. In crypto, the only valid transactions must be the ones signed by the owners of the assets.

Those who believe in that principle don’t use exchanges like Bitget. They swap crypto at rabbit.io instead.