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Binance's Richard Teng breaks down the ‘10/10’ nightmare that rocked crypto
Every crypto exchange saw liquidations during the Oct. 10 liquidation event, Richard Teng told the crowd at CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong.
By Nikhilesh De
Updated Feb 12, 2026, 9:06 a.m. Published Feb 12, 2026, 8:33 a.m.
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What to know:
- Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng said the Oct. 10 crypto crash, which saw about $19 billion in liquidations, was driven by macro shocks like new U.S. tariffs on China and rare earth controls, not by Binance itself.
- Roughly 75% of liquidations occurred around 9 p.m. Eastern amid a stablecoin depegging and transfer slowdowns, but Teng said trading data show no massive withdrawals from Binance, which he said supported affected users.
- Teng argued that crypto remains tied to geopolitical and interest-rate uncertainty, yet institutional and corporate participation continues to grow even as retail demand has cooled.
Binance did not cause the crypto market liquidation event on Oct. 10, but every exchange — centralized or decentralized — saw massive liquidations that day after China imposed rare earth metal controls and the U.S. announced fresh tariffs, said Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng.
About 75% of the liquidations took place around 9:00 p.m. ET, alongside two unrelated, isolated issues: a stablecoin depegging and "some slowness in terms of asset transfer," Teng said Thursday at CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong conference.
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"The U.S. equity market plunged $1.5 trillion in value that day," he said. "The U.S. equity market alone saw $150 billion of liquidation. The crypto market is much smaller. It was about $19 billion. And the liquidation on crypto happened across all the exchanges."
Some users were affected by this, which Binance helped support, he said, an action other exchanges did not take.
Binance facilitated $34 trillion in trading volume last year, he said, with 300 million users. Trading data does not indicate any massive withdrawals from the platform.
"The data speaks for itself," he said.
Speaking more broadly, Teng said the crypto market was tracking broader geopolitical tensions but that institutions are still pouring into the sector.
"At the macro level, I think people are still uncertain about interest rate movements going forward," he said. "And there's always the trend of geopolitics, tension, etc. Those weigh on these assets, such as crypto."
However, pointing to how the sector has changed over the past four to six years, Teng said long-term industry participants will have noticed that crypto prices move cyclically.
"I think what we have to look at is the underlying development," he said. "At this point in time, retail demand is somewhat more muted compared to the past year, but the institutional deployment, the corporate deployment is still strong."
Institutions are still entering the sector, even despite the market, he said, "meaning the smart money is deploying."
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Crypto's role in payments for AI, regulatory changes and the digital asset market dominated conversations on the ground.
What to know:
- Speakers at CoinDesk's Consensus Hong Kong conference said crypto and stablecoins are likely to become the default payment tools for autonomous AI agents in an emerging "machine economy."
- Market participants warned that bitcoin, which has already dropped nearly $30,000 in a month, may fall further, with $50,000 seen as the level to watch.
- Hong Kong regulators are pressing ahead with crypto rules even as others wait to see how U.S. legislation develops.
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