Benson Sun: Binance system issue, not USDe, drove Jan. 11 crypto crash with 50-100% price deviations

Former FTX community partner Benson Sun said on Jan. 31 that Binance bore responsibility for the Jan. 11 crash, but the core issue was not USDe because the timeline does not align. He noted the broader market bottomed at 5:20 a.m. while USDe hit its lowest level of $0.65 at 5:54 a.m., about 30 minutes after the market had begun to rebound. Historical data from the past six years show price gaps between Binance and other exchanges during extreme moves were usually within 5%, Sun said, whereas on Jan. 11 more than half of listed tokens were priced lowest on Binance, with many deviating by over 50% or even 100%. USDT pairs on the same tokens traded significantly below their USD pairs, which Sun argued implies a system issue at Binance rather than market makers pulling liquidity being the main cause. He added that the scale of these mispricings had not appeared in previous black swan events, and commented that while public remarks from OKX Star helped spur discussion, the focus of that debate may have been misplaced.