Gate logs 92 liquidations in BENUSDT market after dividend adjustment

Gate.io’s BENUSDT perpetual futures contract, which tracks Franklin Resources (NYSE: BEN), triggered 92 liquidations on September 30 after the exchange settled a quarterly dividend adjustment. At 08:00 UTC, the platform credited $0.33 per share to net long positions and deducted the identical amount from net short holders via a funding-fee mechanism. Traders on the wrong side of that ledger who hadn’t topped up their margin got force-closed in a matter of minutes.

The exchange had flagged the risk two days earlier, issuing a warning on September 28 that short holders should ensure they had enough margin to absorb the upcoming deduction. Evidently, 92 accounts did not heed the memo.

How a stock dividend becomes a crypto liquidation event

Gate.io offers perpetual futures contracts tied to traditional equities, not just crypto tokens. When the underlying stock pays a dividend, the exchange mirrors that payout synthetically: longs get credited, shorts get debited. Think of it as the exchange recreating corporate actions inside a 24/7 derivatives market that never actually touches a share of stock.

Social media discussions highlighted a key wrinkle: the BEN perpetual contract was trading near $0.000585 at the time of the adjustment. A $0.33 credit on a contract priced at fractions of a penny is an enormous ratio. Long holders effectively received a payout that dwarfed the notional value of the contract itself. Short holders, meanwhile, faced a deduction that could swallow their entire margin and then some.

Franklin Resources: 45 years of dividend raises, one day of perp chaos

The $0.33 quarterly distribution represents a 3.1% increase year-over-year and extends the asset manager’s streak of consecutive annual dividend raises to 45 years.

September 30 was the ex-dividend date for BEN shares, which is why Gate.io chose that date for its synthetic settlement. The exchange has conducted similar equity-perpetual dividend adjustments for other tickers throughout September, including contracts tied to Sitio Royalties (STR-C), Syneos Health (SYK), and Medical Properties Trust (MPW). None of those settlements appear to have generated the same level of liquidation activity.

The difference comes down to contract pricing. When the perpetual’s trading price is reasonably aligned with the underlying stock, a $0.33 adjustment is a small percentage move. When the perp trades at a fraction of a cent, the same dollar amount becomes a wrecking ball.

What this means for traders on equity-linked perps

In a conventional brokerage account, a short seller of BEN stock would see the dividend deducted from their account, but their broker would have margin requirements calibrated to the actual share price. On Gate.io, the perp’s price can diverge significantly from the underlying equity, creating scenarios where the dividend adjustment represents a far larger percentage of the position’s collateral than anyone might expect from a blue-chip asset manager’s quarterly payout.

For traders holding short positions on equity-linked perps, the lesson is straightforward: check the dividend calendar. Gate.io publishes notices ahead of these adjustments, and the September 28 warning gave shorts a full two days to either close positions or add margin. The traders who got liquidated either missed the announcement or misjudged how much collateral they needed.