Binance campaign triggered October crypto collapse, says OKX CEO

Months after more than $19 billion was liquidated in crypto bets and the digital asset market is yet to really recover.

Now, CEO of crypto exchange OKX, Star Xu, has said that Binance partly bears responsibility for the wipeout.

“No complexity. No accident,” Xu wrote on X Friday. “10/10 was caused by irresponsible marketing campaigns by certain companies.”

“As the largest global platform, Binance has outsized influence — and corresponding responsibility — as an industry leader,” he added, claiming that an attractive stablecoin yield offering from Binance led to the cascade of liquidations.

Bitcoin and other digital assets have struggled to make gains since October’s crash. Major digital coins and tokens are now well below their 2025 records and experts think more pain could follow.

Depegging event

Binance in September debuted a new way for traders to earn yield via the USDe stablecoin. The offering let users earn 12% APR during a promotion period and use the stablecoin by Ethena Labs as collateral.

But Xu said that the offering had “hedge-fund-level risk.”

Following October 10 tariff threats from US President Donald Trump, markets across the board got hit hard. Crypto crashed the hardest, with Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana all dropping by double digits.

Traders did not understand the risk of using USDe for collateral to borrow and make more bets and got stuck in a “leverage loop”, argued Xu.

He claimed that “even a small market shock was sufficient to trigger a collapse” and when “volatility hit, USDe depegged quickly”, leading to the liquidation event.

“The damage to global users and companies — including OKX customers — was severe, and recovery will take time,” added Xu.

OKX did not immediately respond to DL News’ questions.

The mother of all crashes

October’s crash was the biggest in the history of crypto with some altcoins nosediving by as much as 80% in a day.

Bitcoin had hit a record just days before but quickly erased those gains following the wipeout.

Since then, the leading cryptocurrency has mostly traded below the $100,000 mark. It was recently priced at less than $81,000 per coin — 36% below its all-time high.

Binance co-founder and ex-CEO Changpeng Zhao said Friday on X that he would “try not to comment on this topic further” but retweeted explanations from others dismissing Xu’s claims.

Following the October crash, traders on Binance experienced pricing errors and some assets depegged. Binance quickly offered hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation to traders who had experienced disruption.

Binance did not immediately respond to questions from DL News.

Mathew Di Salvo is a news correspondent with DL News. Got a tip? Email at mdisalvo@dlnews.com.