Bitcoin temporarily surged to as much as $138,000 on crypto exchange Binance.US earlier today in a sudden price wick on the btc/tether trading pair, exchange data shows.

Prices shot up to those levels for a few seconds at 6:50 a.m. UTC before immediately reverting to parity with other bitcoin spot markets. Other trading pairs for bitcoin traded as normal.

The move was unlikely to have been caused by a trader wanting to pay a nearly 450% premium for bitcoin, which currently exchanges hands for just over $29,000 in European morning hours on Wednesday.

Instead, the bizarre wick likely came amid low liquidity for bitcoin against tether on Binance.US. Market depth data shows a $400,000 bitcoin buy on this trading pair can increase prices by 2%, compared to a minimum of $842,000 for the same impact on a bitcoin/USD trade pair.

Market depth refers to the level of liquidity in a financial market. As such, Binance.US’s market depth has dropped 76% compared to May, as per a Kaiko report earlier this month, suggesting market makers and traders have fled from the exchange.

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Shaurya Malwa

Shaurya is the Co-Leader of the CoinDesk tokens and data team in Asia with a focus on crypto derivatives, DeFi, market microstructure, and protocol analysis. Shaurya holds over $1,000 in BTC, ETH, SOL, AVAX, SUSHI, CRV, NEAR, YFI, YFII, SHIB, DOGE, USDT, USDC, BNB, MANA, MLN, LINK, XMR, ALGO, VET, CAKE, AAVE, COMP, ROOK, TRX, SNX, RUNE, FTM, ZIL, KSM, ENJ, CKB, JOE, GHST, PERP, BTRFLY, OHM, BANANA, ROME, BURGER, SPIRIT, and ORCA. He provides over $1,000 to liquidity pools on Compound, Curve, SushiSwap, PancakeSwap, BurgerSwap, Orca, AnySwap, SpiritSwap, Rook Protocol, Yearn Finance, Synthetix, Harvest, Redacted Cartel, OlympusDAO, Rome, Trader Joe, and SUN.