OKX CEO Star Xu has a problem with how Binance founder Changpeng Zhao talks about money. Specifically, the roughly $800 million Binance says it paid users after the October 10, 2025 market crash.
CZ has framed that payout as a voluntary gesture. Xu argues the framing misrepresents what actually happened, pointing out that the 10/10 crash caused tens of billions in crypto losses.
What Xu is actually arguing
The core of Xu’s criticism is about proportion. In his view, presenting an $800 million compensation package as goodwill shrinks the event it was meant to address.
The numbers give his argument some weight. The October 10, 2025 crash produced approximately $19 billion in liquidations within 24 hours, according to the research findings. Most of that damage landed on traders holding long positions, meaning people betting prices would rise.
Bitcoin itself saw intraday drops ranging from 14% to 30% on the day, depending on the venue. More than 1.6 million accounts were affected.
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Measured against roughly $19 billion in liquidations, an $800 million payout covers a small slice of the wipeout. That gap is the heart of Xu’s complaint.
The USDe question
Xu didn’t stop at the compensation framing. He also attributed the severity of the crash to Binance’s promotion of USDe, a synthetic dollar token.
According to Xu’s argument, USDe was marketed with yields of around 12% APY. That kind of return on a dollar-pegged asset is attractive. It also encouraged traders to stack leverage on top of it, which is where things get fragile.
The research findings describe those yields as unsustainable and say they enabled excessive leverage. Xu’s position is that this setup turned a bad day into a historic one.
Binance tells a different story. The exchange has stated that 75% of the liquidations were due to macro factors and technical issues, not its product promotions.
Background: a rivalry with real stakes
OKX and Binance are two of the largest crypto exchanges in the world, and they compete for the same traders. The aftermath of 10/10 has included significant market downturns and regulatory scrutiny for Binance, according to the research findings. The event has also been linked to shifts in market confidence, with legal and reputational consequences that may follow Binance over the long run.
What this means for traders and exchanges
For traders, the dispute is less about personalities and more about what to expect from exchanges when things go wrong. If an $800 million payout is presented as a favor, users have little basis to expect compensation as a standard practice.
The USDe argument raises a sharper issue. When an exchange promotes a yield product, users may reasonably read that as a signal of safety. Xu is effectively arguing that promotion carries responsibility.
What to watch next: whether Binance offers a fuller breakdown of how it reached its 75% attribution figure, and whether regulators take a closer look at how yield products are marketed alongside leverage.
For now, the 10/10 crash remains a live wound in the market. With roughly $19 billion in liquidations on one side of the ledger and $800 million in compensation on the other, the debate over who owes what to whom looks far from settled.
Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.