On January 1, 2026, a trader known as Vida, the founder of Equation News, reportedly made a profit of $1 million by capitalizing on "abnormal" activity surrounding the memecoin BROCCOLI714 on Binance. The unusual trading activity is suspected to have stemmed from a hacker gaining control of a large Binance account.
The hacker's suspected motive was to manipulate the price of BROCCOLI714 to transfer funds illicitly, likely due to the platform's risk control measures preventing direct withdrawals. BROCCOLI714, a meme coin on the BNB Chain inspired by Binance founder Zhao Changpeng's dog "Broccoli," was chosen due to its low liquidity and small market capitalization. The hacker allegedly placed substantial buy orders to artificially inflate the spot price.
Vida noticed the unusual price movements via automated alerts and quickly recognized it as market manipulation. Armed with this insight, Vida strategically executed a series of trades, opening long positions and closing them after the contract circuit breaker ended, effectively intercepting the hacker's operations. The trader had prepared for such an event, having built a position of approximately $200,000 in BROCCOLI714 spot at $0.016 in November 2025, and held a $500,000 contract short position. Vida's monitoring system was set to trigger an alert if the price increased by more than 30% within 1800 seconds, a condition that was met during the unusual activity.
Further analysis of the order book revealed a significant imbalance, with a $5 million buy order at a 10% depth on the spot market compared to a mere $50,000 buy order at the same depth on the contract market. This, coupled with a $26 million buy order for a memecoin with a $40 million market cap, led Vida to suspect either a hacked account or a bug in a market-making program.
After the initial interception, Binance's risk control systems appear to have intervened, hindering the hacker's ability to place further orders in BROCCOLI714. The hacker then unsuccessfully attempted to manipulate the price of SOL before abandoning their efforts.
BROCCOLI714 is described as a community-driven meme coin on the Binance Smart Chain. The "714" in the name refers to the last three digits of the token's contract address and is also interpreted by the project's community as Binance's founding date. BROCCOLI714 was listed on Binance after a community vote on March 27, 2025.
As of now, Binance has not released an official statement regarding the incident. The event has raised concerns about security vulnerabilities and risk control effectiveness on the exchange. This incident serves as a reminder of the potential risks associated with trading illiquid meme coins and the importance of vigilance in the cryptocurrency market.
