BNB Chain has initiated a $45 million “reload airdrop” to support users who incurred losses from trading memecoins during Friday’s market crash.
This initiative will distribute BNB (BNB) tokens to over 160,000 eligible addresses, according to the network’s announcement on Monday. Airdrops are set to commence this week and conclude by early November.
BNB Chain is a blockchain network established by Binance, now maintained by a decentralized community. It underpins the ecosystem’s native BNB token and facilitates applications across DeFi, gaming, and digital assets.
According to Changpeng Zhao, founder and former CEO of Binance, rewards will be allocated randomly. Ecosystem partners like Four Meme, PancakeSwap, Binance Wallet, and Trust Wallet will assist in distributing the funds to eligible traders.
The airdrop follows a Friday market downturn that caused approximately $20 billion in liquidations across crypto markets—the largest single-day wipeout in the industry’s history.
On Monday morning, BNB reached a new all-time high of $1,370 per token, according to data from CoinMarketCap. This rebound occurred even as Binance faced criticism from users who claimed the exchange exacerbated market turmoil during the crash.
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Binance’s response to the crypto sell-off
A Truth Social post from US President Donald Trump, threatening 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, triggered a historic liquidation in crypto markets on Friday, putting Binance in a challenging position.
Many Binance users reported system glitches during the downturn that prevented them from exiting their positions. One trader, SleeperShadow, remarked on X Saturday that Binance had “shut down their system during a major market crash,” which left the trader “unable to close” futures positions.
Another notable issue arose from Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe, which plummeted to $0.65 on Oct. 11 on Binance but remained close to its $1 peg elsewhere. Guy Young, founder of USDe issuer Ethena Labs, stated that the depeg could be attributed to Binance utilizing oracle data from its own order book, where liquidity was thinner, rather than an external price feed.
A third concern was that altcoins like IoTex (IOTX), Enjin (ENJ), and Cosmos (ATOM) seemingly crashed to $0 on Binance during the market downturn, despite being listed above $0 on other exchanges.
On Sunday, Binance issued a “statement on recent market volatility” to address user concerns. The exchange indicated that it had conducted a “comprehensive review” confirming its “core futures” were operational during the downturn.
Binance explained that the brief price drop for certain spot pairs resulted from old limit orders being activated amid low liquidity during the sell-off. The exchange also clarified that a separate “zero price” display glitch was due to a recent adjustment in decimal settings, rather than actual tokens plummeting to zero.
It added that forced liquidations on its platform accounted for only a small fraction of overall market activity, implying the volatility was predominantly driven by broader market conditions rather than internal issues.
Nonetheless, Binance acknowledged that the depegging of USDE (alongside BNSOL and WBETH) led to some users holding these assets as collateral having their positions liquidated. In response, the exchange has covered their total losses amounting to $283 million.
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