Bitcoin Price Briefly Flash Crashes to $24,000 on Binance, Exposing Liquidity Risks

Bitcoin's price plunged to $24,000 from over $87,000 in a matter of seconds. The dramatic event on Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, wasn't a market-wide collapse but a stark reminder of the hidden dangers of thin liquidity on specific trading pairs.

A Crash in a Flash

Late Tuesday, a sharp wick on Binance’s BTC/USD1 trading pair saw Bitcoin's price momentarily hit $24,111 before snapping back above $87,000 within seconds, according to exchange data. The price fluctuation did not appear on any other major BTC pairs.

The move appeared to be isolated to USD1, a stablecoin launched by World Liberty Financial, a firm reportedly backed by the Trump family. The pair soon normalized, trading back near prevailing market prices.

The Culprit: Thin Liquidity

Such sudden "wicks" are typically caused by thin liquidity rather than a fundamental crash. New or less-traded pairs often have shallow order books, meaning there are fewer buyers and sellers at any given moment. A single large market sell order or liquidation can rapidly exhaust all the buy orders, causing the price to plummet until new bids appear.

The effect can be amplified during quieter trading hours when fewer market participants are active to absorb the order flow and restore price stability.