The crypto market is still reeling from the October 10 flash crash, when more than $19 billion in leveraged positions were wiped out within hours.
Triggered by renewed U.S.–China trade tensions and President Trump’s announcement of 100% tariffs on Chinese imports, the shockwave sent Bitcoin plunging below $110,000, while many altcoins collapsed even harder, marking one of the most violent liquidations in recent history.
In response to the turmoil, Binance launched the $400 million Together Initiative — a large-scale recovery and confidence-building plan aimed at supporting victims and the wider ecosystem.
According to the official announcement, the initiative combines direct user compensation, on-chain recovery measures, and institutional liquidity support.
As part of this broader effort, BNB Chain — in partnership with Four Meme, PancakeSwap, Binance Wallet, and Trust Wallet — introduced the $45 million Reload Airdrop in $BNB, designed to reward memecoin traders across the network.
🪂 The Reload Airdrop is being distributed in four batches, with Batch 1 already complete and the remaining rounds set for early November 2025. This is not an open campaign — only wallets that met the eligibility criteria before the crash receive tokens automatically.
The initiative runs alongside Binance’s $300 million USDC user compensation program and the $100 million institutional support fund, bringing the total recovery effort to $728 million — a rare, coordinated show of solidarity from the industry’s largest exchange.
While Binance works on recovery, attention has turned to what caused the October 10 crash in the first place. On October 12, @CZ_Binance retweeted an investigation by @eyeonchains detailing how a Hyperliquid / Hyperunit whale may have engineered the meltdown through massive BTC-to-ETH rotations and a $735 million Bitcoin short.
The report connects several BTC and ETH wallets and staking contracts to Garrett Jin, former BitForex CEO, previously accused of falsifying volumes and freezing withdrawals.
According to the thread, the same actor sold 35,000 BTC for ETH, staked 570,000 ETH, and opened the large short position right before the October 10 event.
CZ initially commented: “Not sure of validity. Hope someone can cross-check”.
When Hailey Lennon asked why Binance didn’t verify it internally, he replied:
“I would never ask Binance to violate user privacy. I don’t ask myself. Best if third-party investigators use public blockchain data for this research, which they seem to be pretty good at”.
That final remark — “which they seem to be pretty good at” — was widely interpreted as a careful endorsement of the report’s credibility, hinting that the crash may have been an orchestrated manipulation rather than a natural cascade.
