PANews reported on February 12th, citing CoinDesk, that Binance co-CEO Richard Teng stated at the Consensus Hong Kong conference that the cryptocurrency market liquidation on October 11th last year was not initiated by Binance. However, following China’s implementation of rare earth metal controls and the US announcement of a new round of tariffs, large-scale liquidations occurred across all exchanges—centralized and decentralized. Approximately 75% of the liquidations occurred around 9 PM Eastern Time, along with two unrelated, isolated events: a stablecoin de-pegging and “some delays in asset transfers.” The US stock market lost $1.5 trillion in market capitalization that day, with $150 billion in liquidations occurring in the US stock market alone. The cryptocurrency market was much smaller, around $19 billion, and the liquidations occurred across all exchanges.
He also responded that Binance provided support to some affected users that day, while other exchanges did not take similar action. Teng cited data showing that Binance’s trading volume reached $34 trillion last year, serving 300 million users, and the platform did not experience large-scale withdrawals. On a macro level, Teng believes that interest rate policy uncertainty and geopolitical tensions continue to affect crypto asset prices, but institutions and companies are still continuously entering the market. “Retail demand has weakened compared to last year, but institutional deployment remains strong; smart money is entering the market,” he emphasized, stressing the need to pay attention to the industry’s structural evolution and fundamental development over the past four to six years.
