CASE STUDY | A Popular Fintech App Experiences Crypto Price Anomalies Due to Possible Market Illiquidity

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies briefly appeared to crash on financial super app, Revolut, with some users reporting extreme price glitches and erroneous price alerts across multiple digital assets, according to social media posts and reports.

Users said Bitcoin was briefly shown trading as low as $0.02 on the app, while Ether, Solana and XRP also displayed sharp price drops that were not reflected on major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Coinbase and Binance.

Revolut acknowledged technical issues affecting parts of its app and said its teams were working to resolve the problem. The company later said the issue had been fixed.

The apparent ‘flash crash’ triggered automated price alerts for some users, raising concerns about the risks of erroneous data feeds and potential forced liquidations during periods of technical instability.

The incident did not appear to impact broader crypto markets, with Bitcoin continuing to trade above $80,000 on major exchanges after the glitch was resolved.

An alternative explanation is market illiquidity in a thin order book environment. Revolut has limited liquidity depth in comparison to a full crypto exchange and some analysts say that in a scenario involving a large sell order, this could temporarily exhaust available bids resulting in a sharp downside wick.

The lack of similar trades on other venues suggests the move was more likely caused by a data error, while matching activity elsewhere would lend credence to the liquidity-gap theory.

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