Overview
- Binance’s detailed post‑mortem attributes the record ~$19B liquidation day to macro risk, heavy leverage and vanishing liquidity, says roughly 75% of liquidations occurred before its localized issues, and reports paying more than $328 million to affected users with new safeguards in place.
- It acknowledged two incidents after the peak stress: a 21:18–21:51 UTC degradation in asset transfers that caused zero‑balance displays and 21:36–22:15 UTC index deviations for USDe, WBETH and BNSOL, with Ethereum congestion slowing arbitrage and widening dislocations.
- OKX CEO Star Xu contends Binance’s USDe yield promotions normalized leverage loops by letting USDe be used as collateral, arguing this structure depegged locally and worsened liquidations across tokens.
- Industry voices including Wintermute’s Evgeny Gaevoy and Dragonfly’s Haseeb Qureshi counter that the crash was a macro‑driven deleveraging, noting USDe’s sharp move was isolated to Binance and came after bitcoin had already bottomed.
- Liquidity remains thinner with wider spreads months later, former CFTC official Salman Banaei has urged a formal inquiry, and CZ has publicly dismissed claims that Binance caused the cascade.