Trader Claims $1M Profit From Unusual Market Maker Activity on Binance

A trader claimed to have profited about $1 million on New Year’s Day by capitalizing on “abnormal” trading behavior of a suspected market maker account on Binance.

Investor Vida said on X that the abnormal trading activity was tied to BROCCOLI714, a low-liquidity token on the BNB Chain.

The memecoin had an abrupt price surge followed by a sharp reversal early Thursday morning in Asia, which Vida said was driven by unusually large spot buy orders on Binance’s order book.

“I figured it had to be either a hacked account or a bug in the market-making program, because no whale would be dumb enough to do charity like that,” a machine translation of Vida’s post reads.

Vida relied on automated alerts to identify rapid price moves and gaps between spot and perpetual markets. The trader went long as spot buying drove prices up, then reversed to short once pressure faded and futures liquidity normalized.

Related: Binance mulls new US strategy, CZ potentially reducing stake: Report

Binance denies hack rumors

Social media discussions expressed suspicion that the abnormal activity was caused by a hack, a theory that has since been rejected by Binance.

In a statement to Cointelegraph, a Binance spokesperson acknowledged the online discussions surrounding the BROCCOLI714 price movement and said the exchange had launched an internal review.

“Based on initial system checks, Binance’s risk controls and security mechanisms are operating as intended,” the spokesperson said, adding:

Still, Vida reiterated that the pattern did not seem normal.

“I don’t know what’s going on either; how could someone use tens of millions of [USDT] in spot to do charity pumping,” the investor said after Binance rejected the hack rumors.

Related: Trump family-linked USD1 supply up $150M as Binance rolls out yield program

BNB Chain memecoins rise as Solana’s rival

Memecoins inspired by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao’s pet dog Broccoli have become a recurring theme on the BNB Chain, which had a resurgence in 2025 as one of the industry’s most active networks.

On Jan. 1, 2025, the network had fewer than 1 million daily active addresses. Activity later surged, driven largely by a memecoin boom as interest in similar tokens on Solana began to cool. By mid-September, BNB Chain’s active address count had climbed to levels comparable with Solana’s, according to data from Nansen.

By New Year’s Eve, BNB Chain recorded more than 2.6 million daily active users and ranked second overall in both active addresses and transaction volume for the year.

Magazine: 2026 is the year of pragmatic privacy in crypto — Canton, Zcash and more