The cryptocurrency exchange Gate experienced a technical error on Wednesday involving the BENUSDT perpetual futures contract. The platform mistakenly applied a stock dividend payment of $0.33 per share to the contract, which shares a ticker symbol with a low-value crypto token trading at approximately $0.000585.
The dividend charge, which was roughly 564 times the value of the contract, triggered automatic liquidations for traders holding short positions. According to user reports on social media, some accounts saw their balances drop significantly, with one instance showing a negative balance of $1.46 million.
Gate stated that the issue stemmed from two different assets sharing the same name. The exchange confirmed that approximately 200 accounts were affected by the error. The platform's representative, Godot, announced that the technical glitch was identified and resolved within minutes.
The exchange has committed to absorbing all financial losses resulting from the incident. While the company is currently restoring user balances, it has not yet provided a detailed incident report or clarified how it plans to handle the excess credits that were distributed to traders with long positions.
