The "1011 Flash Crash" public relations battle intensifies, with OKX explicitly pointing fingers at Binance for the first time, while CZ accuses the competitor of hiring a troll army to spread FUD.

BlockBeats News, January 31st. Early this morning, Binance founder CZ responded to the recent FUD in the market, stating that the "1011 Flash Crash" was not caused by any Binance system issue or operation. Binance is currently under proper regulation and has no motive to engage in any misconduct. No website or trading platform can guarantee 100% uptime. The user terms clearly state that such situations may occur, and the platform is not liable. While Binance did experience some minor systemic performance issues during peak hours, the platform has handled compensation for resulting losses quite well.

OKX founder Star later took to social media to address the recent implications and for the first time explicitly called for Binance to take responsibility. Star stated that the "1011 Flash Crash" was caused by Binance's irresponsible USDe activities. Binance encouraged users to convert USDT and USDC to USDe for attractive returns but did not adequately highlight the underlying risks, ultimately leading to a minor market shock triggering a market collapse.

Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy apparently aligns more with Binance's response, stating that the "1011 Flash Crash" was clearly not a software failure but rather a high-leverage market flash crash triggered by macro news on a low liquidity Friday evening. No one likes a bear market, but blaming a single exchange platform is not entirely honest from a cognitive standpoint.

Solana co-founder Toly retweeted OKX Star's related tweet and somewhat sarcastically mentioned that "only 18 months have passed since the incident" (SOL rebounded to 2021 bull market levels 18 months after the FTX crash).

Meanwhile, Binance CEO He Yi personally responded to community queries, stating that the whale (Wintermute) has a better understanding of what happened at the time and more authority to speak. He mentioned meeting Star in December 2025 without any mention of the 1011 incident, and now Star is frequently causing trouble.

In an AMA, CZ also mentioned that there are recent instances of competitors hiring "water armies" to maliciously spread FUD. There are also users who did not incur losses during the 1011 event but are pressuring Binance for compensation. However, these voices remain in the minority.