Bitcoin briefly showed $24,111 on Binance in a sharp wick on the BTC/USD1 trading pair late Tuesday, before rising back above $87,000 within seconds, according to exchange data.
The move did not appear on other major BTC pairs and appeared to be isolated to USD1, a stablecoin launched by Trump family-backed World Liberty Financial. The pair later normalized, with bitcoin trading back close to prevailing market prices.
These sudden “wicks” are typically caused by thin liquidity – or a possible display problem – rather than a wider crash. New or less traded stablecoin pairs often have fewer market makers quoting tight prices, meaning the order book can be shallow.
A single large market sell-off, liquidation, or automated trade routed through the pair can sweep bids quickly, forcing the price to print well below the true market level until buy orders reappear.
Such shifts can also be triggered by temporary price issues linked to spread widening, erroneous quotes from a market maker, or trading bots reacting to abnormal prints.
During quieter hours, the effect can be amplified because fewer participants are active to absorb the order flow and restore price parity.
Although the wick can look dramatic on a chart, traders generally treat these prints as a microstructural event rather than a signal about bitcoin’s underlying direction.
Still, it highlights the risk of using thin pairs for execution, especially when stablecoins or trading routes are still building liquidity.
