Binance's Richard Teng says macro shocks drove the October 10 crypto crash

Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng insisted that the crypto market collapse on October 10 was caused by global macroeconomic shocks, not by centralized exchanges like Binance.

Speaking Thursday at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference, Teng said the event wiped out $19 billion in leveraged positions across crypto markets. He argued that liquidations occurred simultaneously on both centralized and decentralized platforms.

Teng linked the October market selloff to geopolitical tensions, citing US tariffs on China and Beijing’s export restrictions on rare-earth metals. According to the Binance lead, those developments completely flipped the sentiment of a market that had already begun showing signs of weakness.

Co-CEO Richard Teng, macroeconomic factors are to blame for 10/10

Teng told the conference attendees and panelists that the first tipover came after US President Donald Trump announced plans to impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese goods. The proposal also included export controls on certain software technologies.

China responded to Trump’s threats by introducing tighter controls on rare earth metals, critical components for advanced manufacturing and electronics. According to Teng, the back-and-forth between Beijing and Washington led to declines across several asset classes, including crypto, pointing to steep downturns in US equities.

The US equity market plunged $1.5 trillion in value that day. US stocks alone saw $150 billion of liquidation. The crypto market is much smaller. It was about $19 billion. And the liquidation on crypto happened across all the exchanges.

Richard Teng.

Bitcoin had touched its all-time high of $125,000 earlier that week, before dropping to around $104,000 over the weekend and falling further below six figures later in October.

Data from Coinglass showed more than 1.6 million traders were liquidated during the 24-hour period of 10/10. Over $7 billion worth of positions closed within less than one hour, but

Coinglass suggested the true liquidation total may have been higher, as exchanges like Binance do not always report real-time data.

Teng said 75% of liquidations occurred around 9:00 PM Eastern Time, which coincided with two isolated market disruptions on exchanges. One incident involved a temporary stablecoin de-pegging, while another involved slowed asset transfers on certain platforms.

On Binance, the stablecoin USDe dropped to $0.65 during the turmoil, triggering further forced liquidations in liquid staking derivatives, alternative layer-1 tokens, and derivatives markets. Total perpetual futures open interest in major exchanges dropped 43% from $217 billion to $123 billion within the first 24 hours of the liquidation doomsday.

However, Teng has bashed claims that Binance caused the liquidation wave, saying there were no abnormal withdrawal patterns from the platform during the event. Binance facilitated $34 trillion in trading volume last year and serves about 300 million users globally, according to Teng.

When some users experienced losses during the crash, Binance provided support to affected traders. “The data speaks for itself,” Teng boasted.

At the macro level, I think people are still uncertain about interest rate movements going forward, and there’s always the trend of geopolitics, tension, etc. Those weigh on these assets, such as crypto.

Richard Teng

He also noted that retail demand appeared weaker compared with previous market cycles, but institutional and corporate participation is still heavy.

Richard Teng praises the US government for passing the stablecoin law

Speaking on how the US government’s push for clarity in digital asset regulation benefited the industry, Teng reiterated that a lot of institutions jumped to try to issue their own stablecoins and partner with issuers once the GENIUS Act was signed into law. 

Corporates are much more willing. And if you look at corporate treasuries now globally, they are moving from traditional fiat channels to stablecoins and crypto. Market cap of stablecoin after the passing of the Genius Act, it went up by 50% last year.

Richard Teng

The Binance CEO also mentioned the stalled CLARITY Act, saying he hoped it would have the same impact on developers, innovators, and crypto exchanges. “Innovation can really be pushed forward to take place,” Teng concluded.

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