Who's Responsible for 10/10?
Plus, L2s are no longer just about scaling
Olivia Capozzalo & Squiffs _
February 04, 2026
gm Defiers!
Today’s big story:
- The debate over who’s to blame for the Oct. 10 crash is raging again after OKX’s CEO said a Binance marketing campaign triggered the collapse.
In other news:
- Vitalik says the L2 model needs to change
- Opinion raises $20 million
- Markets bleed amid tech stock selloff
- How Ethereum gas and blockspace could become commodities [SPONSORED]
- ZetaChain 2.0 brings private memory and AI interoperability to creators [SPONSORED]
Read more below! But first, please give our sponsors some love; they make this newsletter possible.
Stellar: The Proving Ground for Real-World Privacy
The latest Stellar upgrade, X-Ray, delivers zero-knowledge cryptography that lets developers build privacy into their apps—protecting what matters while keeping Stellar radically open, trusted, and ready for real-world finance.
We’re back! Here’s what you need to know in web3 today
📈 Markets in the Past 24 Hours
| TICKER | VALUE | 24H | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Bitcoin | $73,430 | -0.21 % |
 | Ethereum | $2,147.67 | -1.40 % |
 | BNB | $712.61 | -4.12 % |
 | XRP | $1.54 | -1.81 % |
 | Solana | $93.37 | -4.93 % |
Today’s Big Story
Debate Rages Over 10/10 Crash
It’s taken four months and a 40% drop in the crypto market, but investors are finally demanding accountability for the 10/10 flash liquidations.
The volatility that day triggered auto-deleveraging (ADL) across the market’s leading CEXs and DEXs, with even multi-billion-dollar tokens such as ATOM falling by 99.9% in minutes. On 10/10, ATOM plummeted from $4 to $0.001 on Binance in less than an hour, likely liquidating or forcing ADL on every single trader that had any leveraged position.
ATOMUSDT Binance Chart from November 2025
The finger-pointing kicked off as Star Xu, the founder and CEO of OKX, called attention to Binance’s user acquisition campaign at the time, which offered 12% APY on Ethena’s stablecoin, USDe, which generates yield primarily from basis trading.
Xu claims that users converted their stablecoin holdings to USDe, used it as collateral to borrow USDT, and then repeated the process, ramping up the platform’s risk profile at the time.
The orderbooks were then hammered by massive sell orders after President Trump announced surprise tariffs on China, and from there, “USDe depegged quickly,” according to Xu.
Guy Young of Ethena was quick to point out Xu’s inaccuracies, noting that USDe’s price dislocation on Binance occurred 30 minutes after BTC bottomed.
Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood, on the other hand, has repeatedly associated the 10/10 liquidations with a “software glitch” on Binance, and many others in the crypto community are latching on to the notion that Binance “caused” 10/10.
Meanwhile, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) continues to dismiss the accusations as FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) and has reiterated that Binance operated as intended on the day and denies any internal issues with the platform.
The increase in hostility towards CZ and Binance is still largely due to speculation, likely driven by the lack of explanations. However, given the speed and intensity of the selloff, it’s impossible for major players in the altcoin space not to have been crushed on 10/10, and ever since that day, the market has been different.
The total crypto market cap flipped from all-time highs to a constant bleed with seemingly no buyers in sight.
It's been four months, and no major market makers or funds have publicly addressed the damage to their businesses from 10/10. The lack of transparency over what happened that day is clearly catching up with the market.
Xu’s thread offers one explanation for something that could have contributed to 10/10, but it doesn’t definitively prove anything. Still, crypto investors are acting as if new, game-changing information has come to light, when in reality we’re more or less in the same place we were in a month ago, and the month before that.
People are sick of not having an answer, and tired of their portfolios falling every day, they’re dead set on finding a scapegoat.
Squiffs, resident degen at The Defiant
Forwarded this newsletter? Subscribe for daily insights and curated news from The Defiant team, Monday-Saturday. It’s free.
🎬WATCH
Why OG DeFi Failed | Kain Warwick, Founder of Synthetix
In this episode of The Defiant Podcast, Camila Russo sits down with Kain Warwick, DeFi OG and founder of Synthetix and Infinex, for a no-BS conversation at a pivotal moment: Infinex just ran its INX token sale and completed its TGE.
We get into:
- Why Kain believes DeFi’s biggest bottleneck isn’t “more decentralization,” but UX + distribution
- The hard lesson OG DeFi learned: users won’t “learn to love complexity” — the product has to be holistically better
and more! Watch the full interview:
Top News in the Past 24 Hours
- Vitalik Says Ethereum’s Layer 2 Vision ‘No Longer Makes Sense’ After years of Layer 2 networks popping up in an attempt to scale Ethereum and claim market share, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said that the L2 model for scalability no longer makes sense due to Ethereum mainnet’s scaling efforts. Why it matters: Buterin went on to say that L2s can and should add value other than just scaling Ethereum
- Top BSC-Based Prediction Market Opinion Raises $20M Opinion, a prediction marketplace on BNB Smart Chain, announced today that it has raised $20 million in a pre-Series A round. Why it matters: The platform has quietly moved up the prediction market ranks since launching in October, now in #3 by trading volume and #1 by 30-day revenue.
- Crypto Markets Bleed Amid Tech Stock Selloff Crypto markets continued to plunge on Wednesday as disappointing tech earnings and a fragile political truce in Washington triggered a global sell-off. Why it matters: Bitcoin is down nearly 19% in the past week, while 24-hour crypto liquidations surged over $800 million, with long positions making up the majority.
Trending on The Defiant
- Vitalik Says Ethereum’s Layer 2 Vision ‘No Longer Makes Sense’
- Crypto Markets Slide as Government Shutdown Delays Jobs Report
- Trading Bot Bankr Expands to Solana with Token Launches on Raydium
- Spanish Red Cross Taps Ethereum to Protect Privacy of Aid Recipients
- Crypto Markets Edge Higher as Bitcoin, Ether Gain Despite Heavy Liquidations
- Zama Token Debuts at $400 Milion Valuation
That’s it for today — if you enjoyed this newsletter, tell your friends! https://thedefiant.io/subscribe
Get an edge in Crypto with our free daily newsletter
Know what matters in Crypto and Web3 with The Defiant Daily newsletter, Mon to Fri
90k+ Defiers informed every day. Unsubscribe anytime.
