Ethena Founder Says USDe Depeg Due to Binance Oracle Issue

The USDe artificial greenback depegged on the Binance crypto trade due to an inside oracle challenge and never due to the underlying collateral, the Ethena protocol, or the token itself, in accordance to Man Younger, the founding father of Ethena Labs, the creator of USDe.

USDe minting and redeeming labored “completely” throughout Friday’s flash crash, he claimed; $2 billion in USDe was redeemed throughout 24 hours throughout crypto exchanges, together with Curve, Fluid, and Uniswap, with minimal worth deviations of 30 foundation factors (BPS) or much less, Younger said.

The value of USDe fell from about $1 to $0.65 on Binance in the course of the crash as a result of the trade was utilizing oracle knowledge from its personal orderbook, which had thinner liquidity, fairly than an exterior worth feed, Younger mentioned. He added:

“The extreme worth discrepancy was remoted to a single venue, which referenced the oracle index by itself orderbook, not the deepest pool of liquidity, and was going through deposit and withdrawal points in the course of the occasion, which didn’t permit market makers to shut the loop.”

“Nobody would have been liquidated on any cash market with oracles referencing the deepest swimming pools of liquidity for USDe globally,” he mentioned.

The market crash on Friday triggered the largest 24-hour liquidation occasion in crypto historical past, making a cascade that wiped away $20 billion in open leveraged positions, which may solely signify the tip of the iceberg by way of monetary harm, some merchants say.

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Merchants speculate whether or not USDe depeg was a coordinated assault

Crypto dealer ElonTrades speculated that the USDe depegging occasion on Binance was a coordinated assault that exploited the “Unified Account” characteristic on Binance that lets customers put up belongings like USDe as collateral.

This characteristic makes use of Binance’s personal orderbook knowledge as a substitute of exterior worth oracles, which ElonTrades described as a “main vulnerability” and a problem the trade introduced it could repair by October 14 by pivoting to knowledge from exterior oracles. 

The attackers took benefit of this time window, dumping up to $90 million of USDe on Binance, reducing its worth to $0.65 on the trade, and igniting a torrent of liquidations on the platform up to $1 billion.

On the similar time, the attackers opened up quick positions on Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) on the Hyperliquid perpetual futures decentralized trade, minutes earlier than Friday’s tariff announcement from US President Donald Trump despatched merchants into full-blown panic and crypto markets right into a meltdown.

The attackers then netted about $192 million in revenue from their quick positions, because the contagion from the Binance exploit unfold by crypto markets, liquidating about $20 billion due to a $100 million place, ElonTrades speculated.

The liquidation occasion prompted Kris Marszalek, CEO of the Crypto.com trade, to call for an investigation of exchanges that skilled giant losses.

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