The initiative is supported by partners like PancakeSwap and Trust Wallet, and will distribute BNB tokens to more than 160,000 addresses by early November. The market crash was triggered by a Truth Social post from US President Donald Trump threatening tariffs on China, which sent prices plunging and caused major disruptions on Binance. Some users reported being unable to close positions, while others saw altcoins briefly display “zero” prices. Despite the chaos, BNB rebounded to a new all-time high on Monday. Binance also faced lingering technical issues, with Binance Wallet and Trust Wallet users reporting delayed balance displays and pricing glitches caused by network congestion and oracle strain.
BNB Chain Launches $45M Airdrop
BNB Chain unveiled a $45 million “reload airdrop” to help users recover from losses suffered during last Friday’s historic crypto market crash, which wiped out roughly $20 billion in liquidations. The initiative will distribute BNB tokens, which are currently valued at around $1,276 each, to more than 160,000 eligible addresses.
According to the network, the airdrop will begin this week and finish by early November. Partners like Four Meme, PancakeSwap, Binance Wallet, and Trust Wallet will help to facilitate the distribution.
BNB Chain was originally developed by Binance but is now maintained by a decentralized community. It said the effort is meant to support retail traders that were impacted by the extreme volatility seen last week. Binance founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao confirmed that rewards will be allocated randomly among eligible participants.
The airdrop comes just days after one of the most dramatic sell-offs in crypto’s history, triggered by a Truth Social post from US President Donald Trump threatening 100% tariffs on Chinese imports. The shock sent markets tumbling, and Binance was quickly caught in the center of the storm as users reported platform glitches during the chaos. Some traders claimed they were unable to close their positions during the sell-off, while others pointed to issues like altcoins briefly showing “zero” prices on Binance, even though they continued trading normally elsewhere.
(Source: Binance)
Adding to the controversy, Ethena’s synthetic stablecoin, USDe, plunged to $0.65 on Binance while maintaining near-peg levels on other exchanges. Ethena Labs founder Guy Young attributed the anomaly to Binance’s reliance on internal order book data for its oracle, where liquidity was thinner compared to external sources.
Binance later issued a statement assuring its users that its core futures systems remained functional throughout the crash. The exchange blamed the “zero price” glitch on a decimal configuration issue and explained that some brief price drops were due to thin liquidity triggering old limit orders. Binance also confirmed that it compensated affected users holding depegged assets like USDe, BNSOL, and WBETH, covering $283 million in total losses.
Despite the turbulence, BNB rebounded strongly, and hit a new all-time high on Monday morning.
BNB price action over the past week (Source: CoinMarketCap)
Binance Wallet Glitches Persist
Meanwhile, Binance’s infrastructure faced even more strain in the aftermath of Friday’s crypto market crash, as balance display issues persisted across its self-custody product, Binance Wallet, into Monday. The platform confirmed on X that it was “temporarily experiencing lag” due to network congestion, preventing some users from viewing wallet data. Binance explained that the affected information required “buffering time to display” and said its team was working to resolve the issue.
The disruption followed similar glitches on Binance’s trading platform, where abnormal price readings affected several altcoins during the market’s steep decline. Some users claimed they were unable to interact with their assets, with one even reporting a loss of more than $130 after being unable to sell BNB.
The Binance Wallet problems came shortly after Trust Wallet — another self-custody platform founded by Binance’s Changpeng “CZ” Zhao — also experienced issues over the weekend. On Sunday, Trust Wallet said that some users were unable to see their balances due to a “market data sync issue,” though it later announced that the problem was fixed within about four hours.
Despite the resolution, several users continued to report inaccurate balance displays afterward. Trust Wallet’s head of communications, Dami Odufuwa, said that the glitch was limited to fiat balance visibility and did not affect users’ ability to trade, swap, or stake tokens. Odufuwa reassured people that all assets were secure and that the issue stemmed solely from temporary market data synchronization errors.
Trezor analyst Lucien Bourdon suggested that the incorrect balance displays across Binance Wallet and Trust Wallet were likely caused by the record liquidations during the crash, which overwhelmed pricing and oracle servers. Bourdon advised users to verify their funds directly via blockchain explorers during outages.
