Gate Settles Dividend on Wrong BEN Contract
A mistake involving the BENUSDT perpetual contract affected about 200 accounts; Gate says it will cover the losses itself.
Key Takeaways
- On Wednesday, Gate settled a dividend on the wrong BEN contract, which liquidated short positions on BENUSDT.
- According to Gate, about 200 accounts were affected and the exchange itself is covering the losses.
- The mistake happened because two assets share the same ticker; Gate has not yet published a detailed incident report.
Gate processed a dividend on the wrong contract on Wednesday. That caused short positions on BENUSDT to be liquidated, even though the price barely moved. According to the crypto exchange, the incident affected about 200 accounts, and Gate will cover the losses itself.
Wrong Name, Wrong Account
The mistake happened after Gate made an announcement on Monday about Franklin Resources, the American asset manager behind Franklin Templeton. The company was set to pay a dividend of $0.33 (€0.29) per share, and Gate said this would be passed through on Wednesday via the BENUSDT contract.
The problem was that two assets use the same ticker. BENUSDT is a perpetual futures contract, meaning it has no expiration date and lets traders speculate on the price of an asset. Screenshots from traders showed BENUSDT trading around $0.000585 (€0.0005), so it was nowhere near a stock price. A dividend of $0.33 (€0.29) was therefore many hundreds of times higher than the contract price.
Shorts Lost Their Margin
With perpetual futures, longs and shorts sometimes pay a periodic fee to keep the contract price close to the spot price. In this case, the dividend settlement worked in a similar way, but as a cost for short positions. For traders using leverage, that extra charge can quickly eat through margin, after which the exchange closes the position.
According to Gate, that settlement affected about 200 accounts. Some accounts shared one margin pool across multiple positions, which also caused other trades to be closed. In a screenshot shared on X, one account even showed a negative balance of $1.46 million (€1.3 million). Long positions, on the other hand, received a large credit, although it has not been confirmed whether that money was withdrawn.
Gate Promises to Reimburse the Loss
A leader from Gate's creator community program said the problem was found and fixed within minutes. He also said balances are being restored and that Gate is covering the full loss. The platform has not yet published a detailed incident report.
The mistake comes at a time when Gate is putting more focus on stock products. The crypto exchange added trading in Japanese stocks in August. That fits into a broader trend, since other firms are also looking for ways to bring traditional investment products to crypto users. For European readers, the main point is that these kinds of products bring extra operational risks, especially when tickers or contract names look similar.
Other exchanges are also expanding their offerings into traditional markets. For example, the shift toward stocks and commodities shows how quickly crypto platforms are moving toward broader investing apps.
