Binance caught fire, and the exchange's deposit competition has begun

Author: Gu Yu, ChainCatcher

On October 30, Binance was hacked for approximately $6.3 billion. In the following days, the busiest departments in the crypto industry, besides the security teams, were the marketing teams.

At 14:00 Beijing time on November 1, Binance began to gradually restore withdrawals. By 20:36 that evening, the first batch of 15 networks and corresponding assets was fully restored, covering Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Tron, Arbitrum, and others.

In the early stages of recovery, there was a noticeable peak in withdrawals: Binance disclosed that in the first nine and a half hours of restoring withdrawals, it processed $4.649 billion in withdrawals and $1.01 billion in deposits, with a net outflow of approximately $3.64 billion. By November 3, the cumulative net withdrawals rose to $4.72 billion—Binance stated this accounted for about 3% of the platform's assets.

For reference, as of November 3, Binance's reserve size was $154.3 billion, while the second place, OKX, was about $31.4 billion.

Source link: ChainCatcher

Funds were flowing out of Binance, and other competitors were also withdrawing. Since the day Binance resumed withdrawals, Bitget, OKX, and Gate have successively launched new rounds of stablecoin financial products, with annualized rates increasing from 4% all the way to 12%. The time windows for these activities overlapped significantly, and the threshold designs pointed to the same goal—bringing users' funds from Binance.

1. Binance: Filling Back While Raising Interest Rates

Binance's activities came the earliest and resembled a defensive strategy.

Starting from 19:30 on November 2, it launched a user reward program that will last until 07:59 on November 22, consisting of three parts: stablecoin financial product interest rate increases, spot trading fee rebate vouchers, and a trading prize pool totaling 20 million USDC.

The financial product part has tiered interest rates based on holdings. The base annualized rate for USDT and USDC is about 3%. For the first 1,000 USDT, an additional 8% is added, resulting in a comprehensive annualized rate of 11%; for USDC, the rate is tiered by user level, with ordinary users receiving an additional 7% to 7.5% for the first 10,000 to 30,000 coins, VIP 1 to VIP 3 users receiving an additional 8% for the first 200,000 coins, and VIP 4 to VIP 9 users receiving an additional 8.5% for the first 300,000 coins—resulting in a maximum comprehensive annualized rate of 11.5%.

Additionally, RWUSD offers an extra 6.39% for the first 50,000 coins, totaling about 10%; BFUSD offers an extra 5% for the first 50,000 coins, resulting in an approximate annualized rate of 10.11% after combining with the base return of about 5.11%. Users who complete identity verification can receive a 100 USDC spot trading fee rebate voucher; the prize pool is divided based on trading volume, with a maximum limit of 4,000 USDC per person, and VIP 3 and above do not participate.

2. Bitget: 12%, No Deadline Set

Bitget's numbers are the most straightforward.

Its USDC flexible product offers an annualized rate of 12% for the first 300,000 coins, with the excess (300,000 to 10 million coins) dropping to 3.5%—this is currently the highest rate among flexible stablecoin products.

On the USDT side, it follows a net deposit logic: a regular rate of about 4%, with an additional 4.5% for users whose net deposits are not less than 1 million USDT, totaling 8.5%, with a limit of 3 million USDT. There are also USDGO tiers (first 100,000 at 9%, 100,000 to 1 million at 8%, 1 million to 10 million at 5%) and PoolX staking for BTC and ETH, yielding 2.88% and 3.77%, respectively.

What’s more noteworthy is the lack of a deadline. Other exchanges have set deadlines for their activities, but Bitget's Greater China regional head, Xie Jiayin, stated on X that "we will match our competitors' timelines"—not setting a clear deadline essentially turns this into a competitive standard.

However, the launch of the activity did not go smoothly. Many users on X reported that as soon as the subscription channel opened, it showed sold out, with many stating they could not successfully subscribe and questioning whether the limits released by the platform were merely promotional figures.

In addition to regular stablecoin financial products, Bitget also plans to announce a new Pre-IPO subscription plan tonight, using the high yields of quality new assets to attract more funds and become a platform VIP to obtain higher subscription limits.

One background is that Bitget itself experienced a theft two months ago. In September this year, some of its wallets were attacked, resulting in a loss of about $387.5 million, after which withdrawals were restored in batches. This time, it is the one offering the highest annualized rate for flexible stablecoins.

OKX and Gate Also Take Action

As long-time competitors with a history of "grudges," OKX also launched a new flash earning activity today, setting up two prize pools but without a fixed annualized rate.

The first is a "flash earning" BTC/ETH subscription activity, from November 3 at 15:00 to November 8 at 15:00, with hourly interest calculation and anytime redemption. Subscribers will share a prize pool of 1 million USDT (410,000 for BTC, 590,000 for ETH) in addition to the basic financial product returns; the minimum investment is 0.001 BTC or 0.01 ETH, with ordinary users capped at 1 BTC or 100 ETH, while higher-level users can go up to 50 BTC or 3,000 ETH.

The second is a USDC holding reward, from November 2 to December 3 at 07:59, with no subscription required. Users holding no less than 10,000 USDC and with a cumulative trading volume of no less than $1,000 during the activity period can share 400,000 USDC based on their daily qualified holding ratio, with a maximum of 100,000 USDC counted per account.

This tier is clearly aimed at trading VIPs, with the official pitch being "no subscription, just hold to earn," but actual returns depend on the scale of participating funds, with no fixed annualized rate. However, many OKX VIP users obtain their VIP status based on their holding amounts, and the strict criteria have also been questioned by many users.

Gate's financial activity was launched on November 2, covering flexible and fixed-term products with a maximum comprehensive annualized rate of 9%, with returns being "approximately 3% base return + limited-time interest increase" combined. For flexible products, those with a cumulative net deposit of 10,000 USDT during the activity period will enjoy 4% for the first 50,000 coins; those with a net deposit of 50,000 will enjoy 5% for the first 50,000 coins, with funds still available for trading, and interest rewards will be credited automatically the next day, continuing until December 2 at 07:00.

For fixed-term products, VIP 2 to VIP 14 users with a net deposit of 100,000 USDT can subscribe to the first 100,000 coins of a 7-day fixed term at 9%; those with a net deposit of 1 million can subscribe to the first 1 million coins of a 30-day fixed term at 6%, continuing until December 2 at 16:00.

Conclusion

From the withdrawal surge following the Binance hack to various exchanges intensively launching stablecoin financial activities, this competition is no longer just a contest of yields, but a battle for user funds and market trust.

An annualized rate of 12% and tens of thousands of dollars in additional returns seem enticing, but for crypto users who have just experienced a security incident, yield may no longer be the most important consideration. Moreover, many yields are actually inflated, and users may discover significant hurdles only after withdrawing their funds. Bitget recently experienced a theft of hundreds of millions, and Binance is now facing a large-scale net outflow; security records, asset transparency, and withdrawal capabilities are becoming important indicators for users when choosing exchanges.

The amount of assets held by various exchanges may fluctuate to some extent, but user trust and security architecture require years of accumulation to form competitive barriers.