Binance did not cause the crypto market liquidation event on Oct. 10, but every exchange — centralized or decentralized — experienced massive liquidations that day after China imposed controls on rare earth metals and the United States announced new tariffs, said Richard Teng, co-CEO of Binance.
About 75% of the liquidations occurred around 9 p.m. ET, alongside two isolated and unrelated issues: a stablecoin withdrawal and “some slowness in terms of asset transfer,” Teng said Thursday at CoinDesk’s Consensus conference in Hong Kong.
“The U.S. stock market plunged by $1.5 trillion that day,” he said. “The US stock market alone saw a $150 billion sell-off. The crypto market is much smaller. It was around $19 billion. And the crypto sell-off happened across all exchanges.”
Some users were affected by this, which Binance helped support, he said, an action other exchanges have not taken.
Binance facilitated $34 trillion in trading volume last year, he said, with 300 million users. Trading data does not indicate any mass withdrawals from the platform.
“The data speaks for itself,” he said.
Speaking more generally, Teng said the crypto market was tracking broader geopolitical tensions, but institutions continued to flock to the sector.
“At the macro level, I think people are still uncertain about future interest rate developments,” he said. “And there is always a geopolitical trend, tensions, etc. These weigh on these assets, like crypto.”
However, highlighting how the sector has evolved over the past four to six years, Teng said long-term players in the industry will have noticed that cryptocurrency prices move cyclically.
“I think what we need to look at is the underlying evolution,” he said. “Right now, retail demand is a little more subdued than last year, but institutional and corporate deployment remains strong.”
Institutions continue to enter the sector, even despite the market, he said, “which means the smart money is deploying.”
Read More: Crypto’s $19 Billion ’10/10′ Nightmare: Why Everyone Is Blaming Binance for the Bitcoin Crash That Won’t End
