BNB Chain has launched a $45 million “reload airdrop” aimed at compensating users who suffered losses trading memecoins during Friday’s market crash.
The initiative will distribute BNB (BNB) tokens to more than 160,000 eligible addresses, the network said Monday. Aidrops will begin this week and be completed by early November.
BNB Chain is a blockchain network developed by Binance that is now maintained by a decentralized community. It powers the ecosystem’s native BNB token and supports applications across DeFi, gaming and digital assets.
According to Binance’s founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao, rewards will be allocated randomly. Ecosystem partners such as Four Meme, PancakeSwap, Binance Wallet and Trust Wallet will help distribute the funds to eligible traders.
The airdrop follows a Friday market downturn that resulted in about $20 billion in liquidations across crypto markets, the largest single-day wipeout in the industry’s history.
On Monday morning, BNB hit a new all-time high of $1,370 per token, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The rebound came even as Binance faced backlash from users who accused the exchange of worsening the market turmoil during the crash.
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Binance’s response to the crypto sell-off
A Truth Social post from US President Donald Trump threatening 100% tariffs on Chinese imports sent crypto markets into a historic liquidation on Friday, with Binance caught in the eye of the storm.
Several Binance users reported glitches in the system during the downturn that left them unable to exit their positions. One trader, SleeperShadow, wrote on X Saturday that Binance had “shut down their system during a major market crash,” leaving the trader “unable to close” futures positions.
Another flashpoint came from Ethena’s synthetic dollar, USDe, which dropped to $0.65 on Oct. 11 on Binance but remained near its $1 peg elsewhere. Guy Young, founder of USDe issuer Ethena Labs, said the depeg could be attributed to Binance using oracle data from its own orderbook, where liquidity was comparatively thinner, instead of an external price feed.
A third issue was that altcoins, including IoTex (IOTX), Enjin (ENJ) and Cosmos (ATOM), appeared to crash to $0 on Binance during the market downturn, despite being listed above $0 on other exchanges.
On Sunday, Binance released a “statement on recent market volatility” to address user concerns. The exchange wrote that it conducted a “comprehensive review” that confirmed its “core futures” remained operational during the market downturn.
Binance said the brief price collapse for specific spot pairs was caused by old limit orders being triggered amid thin liquidity during the sell-off. The exchange added that a separate “zero price” display glitch stemmed from a recent change in decimal settings, not from tokens actually falling to zero.
It also noted that forced liquidations on its platform comprised only a small share of total market activity, suggesting the volatility was primarily driven by broader market conditions rather than internal malfunction.
Still, Binance acknowledged that the depegging of USDE (as well as BNSOL and WBETH) caused some users holding these assets as collateral to have their positions liquidated. In response, the exchange has covered their losses, totaling $283 million.
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