On February 12, 2026, Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng issued a definitive rebuttal to allegations that a localized depegging of Ethena’s USDe stablecoin on his platform was the catalyst for the “10/10” market collapse. Speaking at the Consensus Hong Kong conference, Teng addressed the controversy sparked by OKX CEO Star Xu, who had publicly blamed Binance’s “leverage loops” and USDe marketing campaigns for the nineteen-billion-dollar liquidation event. Teng argued that this narrative is fundamentally flawed and ignores the broader macroeconomic reality of that day. He pointed out that while the crypto market lost billions, the U.S. equity market simultaneously evaporated 1.5 trillion dollars in value following President Trump’s announcement of 100% tariffs on Chinese goods. According to Teng, the crash was a “system-wide macro shock” that affected every major exchange and asset class globally, rather than a localized failure of a single exchange’s collateral system or a specific stablecoin’s peg.
Infrastructure Strain vs. Systemic Failure: The USDe Performance Disparity
A central point in Teng’s defense was the distinction between a systemic depeg and an isolated liquidity bottleneck. He acknowledged that USDe briefly traded as low as 65 cents on the Binance order book, but he highlighted that the token remained at 99 cents on every other major venue, including Bybit and decentralized exchanges like Curve. Teng explained that the divergence occurred because Binance’s infrastructure faced unprecedented strain during a window where 75% of the day’s liquidations happened within a single hour. This created a “microstructure shock” where arbitrageurs could not move liquidity fast enough to close the gap, especially as API outages and transfer delays slowed the market’s natural recovery mechanisms. By proving that redemptions at parity continued flawlessly on the Ethena protocol throughout the crisis, Teng emphasized that the “depeg” was a symptom of the extreme market-wide panic and forced selling, not the cause of it.
Institutional Resilience and the Industry-First Compensation Program
Despite the volatility, Teng noted that the “10/10” event revealed the differing ways exchanges prioritize user protection. He revealed that Binance has committed 600 million dollars toward user support—300 million to directly compensate those affected by technical “display errors” and another 300 million for a “goodwill fund” to share market risk with severely impacted traders. Teng challenged his critics to match this level of transparency, noting that no other exchange has stepped up with similar financial guarantees. Furthermore, he highlighted that institutional and corporate demand has remained “remarkably resilient” in the months following the crash, suggesting that “smart money” understands these cycles are driven by global geopolitics rather than internal crypto failures. For Binance, the focus for 2026 remains on infrastructure hardening and regulatory harmonization, ensuring that the platform can withstand future macro-driven “black swan” events without compromising its commitment to acting as a stable hub for global digital liquidity.
