A technical error on Paradex, a decentralised crypto exchange built on Starknet, briefly showed the price of Bitcoin at zero on Tuesday, triggering widespread liquidations and forcing the platform offline for several hours.
Database Error Triggers Liquidations
Paradex said the incident was caused by a faulty database migration during scheduled maintenance. The error led to incorrect pricing data, briefly displaying Bitcoin at $0 on the platform.
As a result, automated systems began liquidating positions tied to Bitcoin before engineers intervened. Users on social media reported seeing positions wiped out within minutes, initially believing the issue was only a display bug.
Chain Rolled Back to Restore State
The exchange, which operates on Starknet, said it rolled back the chain to block 1,604,710, the last known correct state before the maintenance began.
All accounts were restored to their pre-maintenance status, and most open orders were force-cancelled as part of the recovery process. Trading resumed roughly eight hours later.
Paradex confirmed that user funds were safe but did not disclose how many traders were affected or the total value of positions liquidated during the glitch.
Trading Restrictions and Warnings Issued
During recovery, the platform moved through several restricted trading modes, including cancel-only and post-only, to prevent further issues. Parts of the exchange remained inaccessible while engineers worked to stabilise systems.
Paradex also warned users to watch out for impersonators and fake support accounts attempting to exploit the situation during the outage.
Community Reaction Raises Concerns
The incident sparked strong reactions online, with users questioning the reliability of decentralised perpetual exchanges when chain rollbacks are required. Some traders said the rollback and deletion of transaction records damaged trust in the platform, especially for those who experienced losses during the brief pricing failure.
Paradex said it is continuing to review the incident and will provide further updates, but the event adds to growing concerns about operational risks in decentralised trading platforms during upgrades and maintenance.
