October is traditionally considered a strong month for Bitcoin, but this year all eyes are on BNB.
The so-called “Uptober,” a term that emerged due to frequent October rallies of BTC, started on a positive note. At that time, a government shutdown had just begun in the US. Now, after three weeks of fruitless negotiations in Washington, anxious sentiments have returned to the market: trading tensions, sell-offs, and the aftermath of large-scale liquidations.
Against this backdrop, BNB, the native token of the BNB Chain ecosystem by Binance, hit new all-time highs twice in October. Meme coin trading surged on the network, and through the Aster BNB platform, it directly competes with Hyperliquid in the decentralized perpetual contracts market.
Currently, the price has pulled back slightly from its peak, but since the beginning of the month, BNB is still up about 6%. However, this growth comes amid increasing pressure on Binance — the company is accused of possible involvement in the recent market crash.
BNB and meme coin season boosted network metrics
Until recently, Solana remained the main place for launching meme coins — mainly thanks to the Pump.fun platform. But in October, its leadership was challenged: a wave of new tokens appeared on the BNB Chain network.
On October 4, one crypto wallet allegedly turned $3,000 into $2 million after Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao posted a meme coin on X. This moment marked the start of a true meme coin frenzy on BNB Chain.
On October 1, Pump.fun launched 93.3% of all new meme coins (across both networks), but after Zhao’s post, its share dropped to 56.2%. Just a week later, on October 8, the BNB-based platform Four.meme captured 83.9% of new launches, and for the first time surpassed Pump.fun in daily revenue. At that time, BNB hit a new all-time high, exceeding $1,300.
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During the October activity spike on Four.meme, analysts at Bubblemaps reported that over 100,000 traders bought new meme coins on BNB Chain. Notably, 70% of them remained in profit.
This hype also boosted the network’s overall metrics. According to Nansen, last week BNB Chain outperformed all blockchains in total fees. It also ranked second in the number of active addresses and transactions, despite an overall decline in on-chain activity in the industry.
But soon the market was hit by the largest liquidation in history: in just a few hours, $19 billion in open positions and about $450 billion in total capitalization were wiped out.
In response to the crash, the BNB Chain team conducted a massive airdrop. $45 million was sent to active participants of the meme coin season.
Binance outage and the Aster oracle scandal
While BNB is wrapping up one of the best months in its history, Bitcoin continues to recover from the recent crash. Against this backdrop, Binance has to fend off accusations that its infrastructure may have triggered the collapse.
One of the key complaints is about the malfunctioning price oracle. On the Binance platform, the synthetic dollar Ethena (USDe) suddenly lost its peg to the real rate. Meanwhile, prices on other exchanges remained stable.
According to analyst Delphi Digital’s Trevor King, Binance values wrapped assets like wBETH, BNSOL and USDe based on the spot price on its own exchange, rather than the actual redemption value. Because of this, it seemed as if the collateral for positions had weakened.
Since the Binance oracle is often used as a base price source on leveraged platforms, the error quickly spread to other venues. King added that by that time, the market correction had already begun, but the error on Binance could have accelerated the drop.
See also: Pump.fun leads in token launches again, earning $1 million a day even as the market falls
After the crash, several users on X reported losses due to technical failures at Binance. One viral post belonged to the account 812.eth. Citing a “market maker friend,” he claimed that Binance was massively rejecting orders during the price drop, which only increased losses. The post was later deleted.
Binance denied the accusations, citing external reasons. According to the exchange, the mass sell-off was triggered by escalating geopolitics. In particular, a statement by Donald Trump about possible 100% tariffs on imports from China. The company did admit, however, that there were “temporary failures in some modules” on the platform and “some assets temporarily lost their peg due to sharp market fluctuations.”
According to Binance representatives, affected users were ultimately paid $283 million in compensation.
But despite all the chaos, the BNB token started rising again. On October 13, it hit a new all-time high, reaching $1370.
That day, Hyperliquid, a rapidly growing decentralized perpetual contracts exchange, led in liquidations. However, it now has a serious competitor — Aster based on BNB Chain.
On October 6, Aster unexpectedly topped the rankings of all DEX by trading volume. In one day, the figure reached $41.78 billion. But soon after, DefiLlama removed its data from their database, citing doubts about the accuracy of the metrics. Later, Aster was returned to the list, but DefiLlama founder 0xngmi clarified that the numbers are still unconfirmed.
October was traditionally Bitcoin’s month, but this year the Binance ecosystem outshined it
The surge in meme coin trading, new incentives, and the rise of the Aster platform helped BNB set record highs. All this against the backdrop of a tough market experiencing major liquidations and escalating global trade conflicts.
While Bitcoin is going through its worst October in the last ten years, activity on the BNB Chain network and total fees continue to grow.
But there were also problems. Binance once again came under scrutiny due to a price oracle failure. This revived old questions about how centralized the exchange’s ecosystem really is.
The removal of Aster from DefiLlama, even if temporary, only added fuel to the fire, especially amid disputes over data reliability. But even with these rough patches, BNB is making what seemed to be a dead month for crypto one of its best of the year.
