Paradex Rollback Raises Hard Questions After Pricing Glitch Triggers Liquidations - Unchained

2026-01-20 12:02:28

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Early Monday morning, something went badly wrong on Paradex. After routine maintenance, prices on the platform briefly collapsed, with bitcoin shown trading at zero. Within seconds, thousands of leveraged positions were wiped out.

For users watching in real time, it was chaos. Screens filled with liquidations before prices snapped back to normal. What initially looked like a display bug quickly became clear as something more serious.

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Hours later, Paradex confirmed a technical error during database maintenance and announced a full rollback of the blockchain to a point just before the issue began. The team said user funds are safe and that the rollback will restore the system to its last correct state. Access to parts of the platform was restricted as engineers worked through recovery.

Rollbacks are rare in crypto because they undo confirmed transactions, cutting against the idea that blockchains are meant to be final and predictable. That is why the decision has unsettled some users, even if funds are ultimately restored.

Paradex processed nearly $1.6 billion in trading volume the day before the incident and has attracted hundreds of millions in deposits. The episode is a reminder that even large, fast-growing exchanges can fail in unexpected ways, and that trust in market infrastructure can disappear much faster than it is built.

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