Binance to Compensate Traders Impacted By Exchange Malfunction

Binance recently experienced severe performance issues amid extreme market volatility. The event left thousands of traders facing unexpected losses. This prompted the exchange to issue an apology and announce compensation plans.

Binance to Compensate Users After Market Glitch

In a recent X post, Binance co-founder and CSO Yi He addressed the platform malfunction situation. She explained that Binance experienced technical issues due to sudden market swings and a large increase in user activity.

Binance has identified three specific assets that suffered the most during the crash. This includes Ethena’s stablecoin USDe, Binance-issued Solana liquid staking token BNSOL, and Wrapped Beacon liquid staking token WBETH

Each of these tokens lost its usual price stability on Friday night. For instance, USDe, which is designed to stay at $1, fell to about $0.66. Binance confirmed that it is closely reviewing trades and activities involving these tokens to determine which users qualify for compensation.

Yi He clarified that the exchange will focus its compensation efforts on users who were impacted by these price disruptions, not by normal market movements or unrealized profits.

Handling User Claims and Wealth Management Accounts

Yi He later explained that Binance will not take back profits from traders who bought affected tokens at lower prices during the volatility. 

She also confirmed that the exchange is already processing claims for users in wealth management products linked to the affected tokens. For regular traders who faced losses or forced liquidations due to system delays, Binance will review and handle each case separately.

Binance CEO Richard Teng, who took over leadership from Changpeng “CZ” Zhao stepped down in 2023, also issued a public apology on X. Teng did not specify how many users would receive compensation or how much would be paid, but he said that Binance is handling each case with care.

Crypto Market Suffers $19.3 Billion Wipeout as Prices Plunge

The sudden drop in crypto prices caused large-scale losses across the entire market. According to Coinglass, more than $19.3 billion worth of trading positions were liquidated in 24 hours, affecting about 1.7 million traders. Many analysts described it as one of the biggest liquidation events in crypto history.

Binance ranked third in total liquidations, behind Hyperliquid and Bybit, with over $1.4 billion in long positions and $981.6 million in short positions liquidated. The platform’s ratio of 59% long liquidations was lower than that of most exchanges, which saw more than 85% of liquidations come from long traders.

Meanwhile, Binance’s native token BNB, which recently hit a fresh all-time high, also fell by nearly 9.6% in one day. Although it still overtook XRP to become the third-largest non-stablecoin cryptocurrency by market capitalization.