BNB Chain has introduced a $45 million “reload airdrop” designed to reimburse users who incurred losses trading memecoins during Friday’s market crash.
The initiative will allocate BNB (BNB) tokens to over 160,000 qualifying addresses, as announced by the network on Monday. Airdrops will commence this week and finish by early November.
BNB Chain is a blockchain network created by Binance, now managed by a decentralized community. It supports the ecosystem’s native BNB token and facilitates applications across DeFi, gaming, and digital assets.
According to Binance’s founder and former CEO, Changpeng Zhao, the rewards will be distributed randomly. Ecosystem partners such as Four Meme, PancakeSwap, Binance Wallet, and Trust Wallet will assist in transferring the funds to eligible traders.
The airdrop comes after a Friday market downturn that led to approximately $20 billion in liquidations across crypto markets, marking 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 despite Binance facing 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 by US President Donald Trump threatening 100% tariffs on Chinese imports triggered a historic liquidation in crypto markets on Friday, with Binance caught in the middle.
Numerous Binance users reported system glitches during the downturn that prevented them from closing their positions. One trader, SleeperShadow, mentioned on X Saturday that Binance had “shut down their system during a major market crash,” leaving the trader “unable to close” futures positions.
Another point of contention arose from Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe, which fell to $0.65 on Oct. 11 on Binance while maintaining its $1 peg on other platforms. Guy Young, founder of USDe issuer Ethena Labs, suggested the depeg resulted from Binance relying on oracle data from its own order book, where liquidity was thinner, rather than using an external price feed.
A third issue involved altcoins, including IoTex (IOTX), Enjin (ENJ), and Cosmos (ATOM), which appeared to crash to $0 on Binance during the market downturn, despite being valued above $0 on other exchanges.
On Sunday, Binance issued a “statement on recent market volatility” to address user concerns. The exchange stated that it conducted a “comprehensive review” that confirmed its “core futures” remained operational during the market drop.
Binance explained that the fleeting price drop for certain spot pairs resulted from old limit orders being activated amid thin liquidity during the sell-off. They also clarified that a separate “zero price” display issue stemmed from a recent adjustment in decimal settings, rather than from tokens actually dropping to zero.
Furthermore, the exchange noted that forced liquidations on its platform constituted only a minor fraction of total market activity, indicating that the volatility was largely a consequence of broader market trends rather than internal issues.
Nevertheless, Binance acknowledged that the USDE (along with BNSOL and WBETH) depegging led some users holding these assets as collateral to have their positions liquidated. Consequently, the exchange has covered the losses, amounting to $283 million.
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