OKX founder blames Binance for Oct. 10 crypto crash

Xu Mingxing, founder of the crypto exchange OKX, which has Chinese roots, has publicly blamed Binance for the sharp crypto market downturn on Oct. 10 of last year. In a post on X, Xu argued that the crash stemmed from an irresponsible marketing campaign by certain companies, leading to tens of billions of dollars in forced liquidations and fundamentally damaging the crypto market's microstructure. He pointed out that Binance offered a 12% annual interest rate for USDe depositors and accepted it as collateral on par with USDT and USDC, even though he considers USDe to be more like a tokenized hedge fund product. This, he claimed, encouraged users to repeatedly convert stablecoins to USDe and use it as collateral to borrow more USDT, rapidly increasing systemic risk. When market volatility hit, USDe de-pegged, triggering a cascade of forced liquidations. Xu added that he expects a significant amount of false information and organized FUD targeting OKX in the near future because of his criticism, but stressed that it is right to speak honestly about systemic risks.