OKX Breaks Silence on Oct 10 Crash That Wiped Out Billions

The timing matters. His post landed around October 12, 2026. That is close to the one-year anniversary of the “10/10” crash. So the comments reignited a blame war between OKX and Binance.

What Star Xu Actually Said

Star Xu did not announce a new program. Instead, he published pointed criticism of a rival. He targeted how Binance now frames its payout after the OKX crash.

First, he described the scale of the damage. According to his post, the crash sent “shockwaves through the global crypto market.” It also inflicted “devastating financial losses and immense suffering on countless people.”

Then he quoted “the world’s richest man.” That phrase clearly points to Binance founder Changpeng Zhao. In a recent interview, Zhao said Binance “took out about $800 million compensating users.” He added that “there’s no obligation for Binance to do that.”

Star Xu rejected that framing at once. In his telling, the tragedy “has become a story of Binance’s generosity.” He mocked the idea that it “apparently deserves praise.” You can read the full post on Star Xu’s X account.

The $800 Million Figure Behind the Binance Compensation

The number Star Xu attacked comes from Zhao himself. Still, the interview figure differs from Binance’s itemized disclosures.

Binance has reported more than $328 million in direct compensation. That money covered platform-specific problems. Those included price deviations on USDe, WBETH, and BNSOL. A temporary asset-transfer slowdown also hit users during the cascade.

Binance then added two more programs. One was a $300 million discretionary “Together Initiative.” The other was a $100 million low-interest loan fund for institutions. Together, the relief lands near the $600 million to $800 million range.

So the Binance compensation headline is real. Yet the makeup is messy. Star Xu’s point is simple. The dollar figure looks small next to the damage.

What Happened on October 10, 2025

The crash began with a macro shock. At about 14:57 UTC, President Donald Trump announced a 100% tariff on Chinese imports. Equities then sold off fast.

Crypto followed, and leverage did the rest. Funding rates ran hot. Order books stayed thin. Market makers also pulled their quotes as prices fell.

As a result, forced selling cascaded. Liquidations erased roughly $19 billion in positions over about 24 hours, according to CoinGlass data cited widely afterward. Longs made up close to 85% of that total. The wipeout also hit more than 1.6 million accounts.

Bitcoin had set a record near $126,200 on October 6. Just four days later, it fell into the $104,000 to $107,000 range. CoinGlass also warned the true figure ran higher. Some exchanges rate-limited their reporting during the chaos.

The sell-off spread across assets. Ether and Solana both posted double-digit drops. Some smaller tokens fell far harder intraday. In total, analysts pegged the market-cap hit in the hundreds of billions.

Analysts add one caveat here. Much of that $19 billion was synthetic leverage. So real cash losses likely ran far below the notional number.

Binance’s Side of the Story

Binance tells a different story about the OKX crash. The exchange calls the crash primarily macro-driven. Leverage and vanishing liquidity did most of the work, in its view.

Binance also says roughly 75% of liquidations happened before its own index deviations. In that framing, its technical issues came as a symptom, not the trigger.

Some independent analysts lean the same way. Still, Star Xu sees it differently. His position is not new either. In a January 2026 post, he wrote that “10/10 was caused by irresponsible marketing campaigns by certain companies.”

Context matters here, though. Star Xu runs a direct competitor to Binance. So critics have dismissed his comments as competitive pressure. They see rivalry, not neutral analysis.

How the Crypto Community Reacted

Reaction on X split fast. Many users agreed with Star Xu regarding the OKX crash. They argued that $800 million barely dents tens of billions in losses. Some also revived the “prolonged winter” theme from his post.

Others pushed back just as hard. A few called the post competitive FUD from a rival exchange. Still, almost nobody disputed his core claim about the scale of the damage. So the fight now centers on blame, not on whether the pain was real.

Why the Binance Compensation Feud Still Matters

This fight is really about one thing. Who controls the story of 10/10? One year on, the market still sits well below its October 2025 peak. Trust also remains fragile.

Star Xu’s core point is a scale mismatch. Any payout framed as generosity ignores the bigger picture. He points to tens of billions in damage. He also points to the “prolonged winter” that followed.

For now, no regulator has assigned formal blame. No single exchange carries the decisive cause either. So the debate will likely keep running past the anniversary. None of this is financial advice. Readers should treat competing exchange narratives with care.