On January 1st, Vida, founder of Formula News, recounted his $1 million profit from the BROCCOLI714 hack on the X platform. He noticed the volatility of BROCCOLI714 after it surged over 30% in 1800 seconds, and immediately closed his previously set arbitrage positions. The original $500,000 each arbitrage hedging positions became $800,000 in spot value and $500,000 in contract value. By immediately closing all arbitrage positions, he pocketed $300,000.
Immediately afterwards, it was discovered that there were $5 million in buy orders at the 10% bid depth for Binance BROCCOLI714 spot, while the 10% bid depth for the contract was only $50,000. Binance's main order book showed that BROCCOLI714 had a market capitalization of $40 million at the time, with $26 million in bids, leading to the conclusion that either a user account had been hacked or there was a bug in the market-making program. After confirming that the hacker had $26 million in funds in the spot order book, it was understood that their purpose was to pump and dump the spot price to inflate the contract price and then exit through the contract. It was confirmed that as long as the hacker did not withdraw buy orders from the spot market, the price of BROCCOLI714 would continue to rise.
Vida then chose to attempt to long on the BROCCOLI714 USDT perpetual contract every 5-10 seconds on the trading terminal. If the order was successful, it meant that the circuit breaker mechanism had expired and the contract would be liquidated. He eventually succeeded in waiting for this opportunity and added about $200,000 to his long position at a contract entry cost of $0.046.
After the hacker canceled the order book midway, Vida believed it had been sanctioned by the risk control department. At 04:20:52.732 Beijing time on January 1, 2026, Vida began to sell all of its previously accumulated and subsequently added BROCCOLI714 spot and contract positions regardless of cost. With an original position of $200,000 and an additional $200,000, Vida eventually cashed out $1.5 million.
