Binance has rejected claims that a technical or pricing failure caused more than 5 million USDT in alleged losses during an extreme move in the AKEUSDT perpetual futures contract on Sept. 3. The dispute emerged after X user xunlu said more than 30 funding-rate arbitrage positions were liquidated within minutes as AKE rose from roughly $0.0076 to nearly $0.045. That move represents an increase of about 492%, enough to put severe pressure on leveraged short positions even when those trades are part of strategies designed to reduce directional exposure.
Binance said its internal review found no malfunction in its pricing model, liquidation engine or risk-control systems. The exchange instead attributed the liquidations to market volatility, noting that AKE experienced large price swings across multiple exchanges and on-chain venues during the same period. The disagreement now centers on how Binance calculated the AKEUSDT mark price, particularly because the exchange does not list AKE in its own spot market and therefore relies on external price data.
Trader Says More Than 30 Arbitrage Positions Were Liquidated
The complainant said the liquidations occurred at around 5:44 a.m. UTC+8 on Sept. 3 and affected more than 30 funding-rate arbitrage positions. The estimated loss exceeded 5 million USDT.
The trader argued that the episode was not simply the result of ordinary market volatility and instead alleged that coordinated activity in AKE caused an abnormal move that rapidly forced positions to close. Binance has not accepted that explanation and has not acknowledged any market manipulation.
No regulator or independent investigator cited in the source has publicly concluded that manipulation occurred. For now, the trader’s characterization of the event as coordinated activity remains an allegation.
Binance’s position is that the contracts were liquidated because their collateral fell below required maintenance thresholds during a sharp market move, not because of a system defect.
A Liquidation Can Occur Even When an Exchange Is Operating Normally
The distinction between a technical failure and a valid liquidation is central to the dispute. Leveraged derivatives positions can be closed automatically when available collateral is no longer sufficient to support them.
That process does not require an exchange outage or malfunction. If the value of a leveraged position moves far enough against the trader, the platform can liquidate the trade to prevent the account from building a larger deficit.
Crypto derivatives markets operate continuously, which can make this process particularly fast. During extreme price movements, a trader may have only a short period to add collateral before a position reaches its maintenance-margin threshold.
That is why Binance argues that the fact that many positions were closed within minutes does not itself demonstrate that the exchange suffered a technical problem.
The AKEUSDT Mark Price Is at the Center of the Disagreement
The most important technical issue is that Binance does not offer AKE in its spot market. As a result, the AKEUSDT perpetual contract cannot rely on a Binance spot order book to determine the underlying reference price.
Instead, Binance says it calculates the mark price using data collected from multiple external spot markets.
A multi-market index is designed to reduce the impact of an unusual trade or temporary price gap on any single venue. Binance maintains that both its index and mark-price methodology operated as intended during the Sept. 3 volatility.
For perpetual futures, the mark price is especially important because liquidation is commonly based on that reference rather than on the last price at which the futures contract traded.
This mechanism is intended to reduce forced closures caused by temporary distortions in the futures order book itself.
Public Spot Charts Did Not Fully Match the Contract Peak
The dispute became more complicated because publicly available aggregated spot charts showed substantial AKE volatility but did not reach the same peak cited for the futures contract.
The trader said AKEUSDT surged to nearly $0.045. The highest combined spot reading visible in public charts remained below that level.
The source notes several possible explanations for the discrepancy. Prices may have differed between the futures contract and external spot venues, or the specific index used to calculate Binance’s mark price may have behaved differently from aggregated public charts.
However, the available information does not establish which factor explains the gap.
That uncertainty is why the composition of Binance’s external pricing index has become such an important part of the trader’s complaint.
Trader Requests Full Records and Risk-Control Logs
The complainant has asked Binance to provide transaction records, liquidation details and internal risk-control logs related to the Sept. 3 session.
Those records could help determine precisely which mark-price values were used when individual positions were liquidated and how the platform’s systems responded as AKE moved higher.
The trader is also seeking information that could clarify whether external market data used by Binance accurately reflected the broader AKE spot market during the volatility.
Binance has acknowledged the complaint but has not announced compensation.
Its current position remains that the systems worked normally and that the liquidations resulted from market risk.
Funding-Rate Arbitrage Is Not Free of Directional Risk
The affected positions were described as funding-rate arbitrage trades. These strategies are generally designed to profit from recurring payments between long and short perpetual-futures traders rather than from the direction of the underlying token.
A common structure combines offsetting exposure. For example, a trader might hold the underlying asset in the spot market while taking an opposite futures position. Other approaches may spread positions across several exchanges or contracts.
Because the two sides offset each other economically, such strategies are often described as market-neutral.
However, the leveraged side can still be liquidated if collateral falls too quickly during an extreme price move. A hedge can reduce exposure to price direction while leaving execution risk, liquidity risk, collateral risk and exchange risk intact.
The AKE episode illustrates that distinction clearly.
A Nearly Sixfold Price Move Can Overwhelm Short-Side Collateral
AKE’s reported rise from around $0.0076 to almost $0.045 would represent a move of roughly 492%, or nearly six times the original price.
For a trader holding a leveraged short perpetual position, such an increase can consume available margin very quickly.
If many traders hold similar positions and liquidation levels are clustered in the same area, forced closures can begin to reinforce the price increase. Short traders must buy back contracts to close their positions, which can add new buying pressure.
That mechanism is known as a short squeeze.
The complainant argues that this is what happened in AKE, although the existence of a squeeze does not by itself establish manipulation or exchange failure.
Forced Liquidations Can Accelerate an Existing Move
The source compares the episode with an unrelated squeeze in August in which around $2.77 billion in short positions were liquidated across major exchanges, with Binance accounting for approximately $518 million.
In that event, forced purchases contributed to further price increases and triggered additional liquidations.
The comparison demonstrates how automated closures can amplify a fast-moving market. It does not establish that the AKE incident had the same cause or that manipulation was involved.
In leveraged markets, the liquidation mechanism itself can become part of the price movement once enough positions begin to fail.
That makes it difficult to separate the initial catalyst from the acceleration caused by forced trading.
Binance Says Market Volatility, Not a System Error, Caused the Losses
Binance has consistently maintained that the Sept. 3 event was driven by market conditions.
The exchange says AKE experienced substantial price movements across multiple external venues and on-chain markets, and that its own pricing and risk systems remained operational.
That means Binance views the episode as a consequence of leveraged trading rather than a platform malfunction.
The key unresolved question is whether the external spot data used to construct the mark price accurately represented the market during the surge.
Without the internal records requested by the trader or an independent investigation, the source does not provide enough evidence to resolve that disagreement.
The Case Highlights the Importance of External Index Design
Because Binance does not list AKE spot, the quality of the external reference index is unusually important.
When an exchange has its own liquid spot market, traders can directly compare futures behavior with prices formed on the same platform. For AKEUSDT, that comparison is not available.
Instead, traders depend on how Binance selects, weights and processes external market data.
A well-designed index can reduce the impact of isolated price distortions. But during extreme volatility in a less liquid asset, even a multi-market methodology can become a focal point of dispute if different venues diverge significantly.
The AKE case therefore raises a broader issue about how derivatives exchanges handle mark pricing for assets they do not list in spot markets.
U.S. Traders Operate Under a Different Derivatives Framework
The AKEUSDT contract is an offshore Binance product and is not available through Binance.US.
Crypto derivatives in the United States are subject to Commodity Futures Trading Commission rules, and regulated perpetual futures began entering the domestic market in 2026 through approved products from platforms including Kalshi and Coinbase.
Those products operate under different approval processes, leverage limits and market-surveillance requirements from offshore perpetual contracts.
The regulatory distinction does not resolve the AKE dispute, but it highlights how market structure and investor protections can vary substantially across jurisdictions.
Conclusion
Binance has denied that any technical, pricing or liquidation-system failure caused more than 5 million USDT in alleged losses during the Sept. 3 AKEUSDT surge. The exchange says its systems operated normally and attributes the liquidations to a sharp market move that pushed leveraged positions below maintenance-margin requirements.
The trader disputes that explanation and has asked for transaction records, liquidation data and risk-control logs, particularly because Binance relies on external spot venues to calculate the AKEUSDT mark price. No independent authority has yet concluded that manipulation or a system error occurred.
Final Takeaway
The AKE dispute is ultimately about more than a nearly 500% price spike. It is about how liquidation prices are formed when a derivatives exchange does not operate its own spot market for the underlying asset. Binance says its external index worked as designed, while the trader wants the underlying records examined. Until those records or an independent review establish what drove the mark price, the difference between extreme market risk and a pricing failure remains unresolved.
[…] Binance has rejected claims that a technical or pricing failure caused more than 5 million USDT in alleged losses during an extreme move in the AKEUSDT perpetual futures contract on Sept. 3. The dispute emerged after X user xunlu said more than 30 funding-rate arbitrage positions were liquidated within minutes as AKE rose from roughly $0.0076 to nearly $0.045. That move represents an increase of about 492%, enough to put severe pressure on leveraged short positions even when those trades are part of strategies designed to reduce directional exposure. […]