Bitget scrambles to compensate traders after VOXEL futures glitch sparks perps frenzy

Bitget has initiated compensation for users impacted by a trading glitch involving VOXEL/USDT perpetual contracts, following unusual price action on April 20.

On April 22, Bitget announced that transaction rollbacks and account recoveries had been “basically completed,” and that compensation for users who incurred losses during the VOXEL/USDT perps incident is now underway. The exchange also noted it is conducting a secondary internal review in response to user complaints about incorrect fee deductions and inaccurate profit and loss calculations following the rollback.

The VOXEL/USDT perps incident began around 8 a.m. UTC on April 20 when gaming token VOXEL surged over 200% in just 30 minutes. The spike briefly made VOXEL the most traded asset on Bitget, with its daily trading volume surpassing that of Bitcoin ( BTC ) as its price action ranged tightly between $0.125 and $0.138 before peaking at $0.1645.

Due to the suspected market maker activity , orders within that price range were executed instantly. Under normal conditions, perpetual futures contracts rely on an order book where each trade requires a counterparty. In this case, however, trades appeared to bypass that process, executing automatically with no delay.

In response, Bitget suspended trading on the VOXEL/USDT contract and froze several accounts involved in the abnormal activity. While the exchange assured users the incident was not caused by a system exploit or internal failure, it has yet to disclose who was responsible for the April 20 VOXEL futures activity.

VOXEL is the native token of Voxie Tactics, a free-to-play tactical RPG, which runs on the Polygon ( MATIC ) blockchain and functions as both a utility token and in-game currency, playing a key role in the game’s rewards system and overall economy.

Beyond the Bitget incident, VOXEL has been in the spotlight recently, emerging as one of the top trending tokens on CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko over the weekend due to its explosive price action — the token skyrocketed from just $0.02 on Friday to an intraday high of $0.17 on Sunday, marking a staggering 750% pump. However, it has since dropped to $0.06, but still up 200% from its Friday low.