The cryptocurrency market has been struck by another wave of red candles, plunging 4.1% in the past 24 hours. Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin have all suffered notable declines, with all large market-cap cryptocurrencies falling below support levels that held last week.
The downturn gained momentum after claims surfaced on X suggesting that Wintermute, one of the industry’s largest market makers, was preparing to sue Binance over alleged issues linked to the October 10 crash.
Rumors Of A Lawsuit Against Binance Add To Anxiety
Market unease deepened after rumors circulated on X claiming that Wintermute, one of the industry’s leading market makers, was preparing to sue Binance over losses incurred during the October 10 crash. The speculation began when a user known as WhalePump Reborn claimed that Wintermute had lost hundreds of millions and was preparing legal action, describing the situation as “not going to be pretty.”
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This was followed by another detailed post from a popular X account known as StarPlatinum, which addressed rumors that Wintermute was pursuing legal action against Binance over what it called unfair ADL executions during the massive liquidation event in early October.
As noted by the post, Binance’s system overload during the crash led to automatic deleveraging (ADL) at extreme price points, causing an estimated $19 billion to $20 billion in liquidations in just 24 hours, the largest single-day wipeout in crypto history.
Notably, Wintermute’s portfolio across Ethereum, Arbitrum, and Solana fell by about $65 million following the crash, though no on-chain patterns indicated forced liquidations or large withdrawals. Binance, for its part, had acknowledged system overloads at the time but denied any preferential treatment or technical fault that could have led to any unfair losses.
Wintermute Founder Refutes Claims Of Lawsuit
As panic spread through the market, Wintermute’s founder, Evgeny Gaevoy, took to X to dispel the rumors entirely. Quoting an earlier post from October 11, Gaevoy reiterated that Wintermute had never planned to sue Binance and saw no reason to do so in the future.
“We never had plans to sue Binance, nor see any reason to do it in future,” Gaevoy said on X. “I should probably ask to make a note of all the people spreading baseless rumors, but most of people believing these have goldfish memory capacity, so I wont,” he added. He also described the circulating claims as complete bullshit in a direct response to the WhalePump Reborn post.
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The Wintermute rumors are part of various factors that are causing the price of cryptocurrencies to crash. Another factor could be the Fed Chair Jerome Powell hinting that the central bank may not pursue additional rate cuts anytime soon. Adding to the selling pressure were outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs. According to data from Farside Investors, Spot Bitcoin ETFs started November with outflows on Monday, bringing the trend to four consecutive days of outflows.
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $104,502, down by 2.8% in the past 24 hours. Ethereum is trading at $3,490, down 6.0% in 24 hours. Dogecoin is trading at $0.1618, down 6.8% in 24 hours.
Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com
