Binance did not cause the crypto market liquidation event on Oct. 10, but every exchange — centralized or decentralized — saw massive liquidations that day after China imposed rare earth metal controls and the U.S. announced fresh tariffs, said Binance Co-CEO Richard Teng.

About 75% of the liquidations took place around 9:00 p.m. ET, alongside two unrelated, isolated issues: a stablecoin depegging and “some slowness in terms of asset transfer,” Teng said Thursday at CoinDesk’s Consensus Hong Kong conference.

“The U.S. equity market plunged $1.5 trillion in value that day,” he said. “The U.S. equity market alone saw $150 billion of liquidation. The crypto market is much smaller. It was about $19 billion. And the liquidation on crypto happened across all the exchanges.”

Some users were affected by this, which Binance helped support, he said, an action other exchanges did not take.

Binance facilitated $34 trillion in trading volume last year, he said, with 300 million users. Trading data does not indicate any massive withdrawals from the platform.

“The data speaks for itself,” he said.

Speaking more broadly, Teng said the crypto market was tracking broader geopolitical tensions but that institutions are still pouring into the sector.

“At the macro level, I think people are still uncertain about interest rate movements going forward,” he said. “And there’s always the trend of geopolitics, tension, etc. Those weigh on these assets, such as crypto.”

However, pointing to how the sector has changed over the past four to six years, Teng said long-term industry participants will have noticed that crypto prices move cyclically.

“I think what we have to look at is the underlying development,” he said. “At this point in time, retail demand is somewhat more muted compared to the past year, but the institutional deployment, the corporate deployment is still strong.”

Institutions are still entering the sector, even despite the market, he said, “meaning the smart money is deploying.”

Read more: Crypto’s $19 billion ’10/10′ nightmare: Why everyone is blaming Binance for the bitcoin crash that won’t end

As the chart shows, the Nikkei 225 index (Japan 225 on FXOpen) reached a historic high near 58,500 points on Monday. Bullish sentiment was driven primarily by political developments.

According to media reports, the rally followed the decisive victory of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) under Sanae Takaichi, who has signalled aggressive fiscal stimulus measures (a package exceeding $135 bn), food tax cuts, and the continuation of an accommodative monetary policy stance.

However, today the Nikkei 225 is showing signs of a pullback. It is possible that major market participants have begun taking profits amid the wave of optimism, as Takaichi’s victory had already been largely priced in, and official confirmation of a parliamentary supermajority may have acted as a trigger to close long positions.

From a technical perspective, a retracement also appears justified.

Technical Analysis of the Nikkei 225 Chart

It is worth noting that:

→ after the RSI moved into extreme overbought territory, it formed a bearish divergence with price;
→ price action itself produced a bearish triple top pattern.

As the decline unfolds, a local trendline (shown in purple) has shifted from acting as support to functioning as resistance.

In light of the above, it is reasonable to assume that an extended pullback could drive the Nikkei 225 towards the median of the long-term ascending channel.

In the event of a deeper correction, the support zone below the 56,000 level may come into play, where a previous bullish imbalance formed characteristics of a Fair Value Gap pattern.

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ARK Invest, the investment firm led by Bitcoin bull Cathie Wood, snapped up a significant batch of crypto-linked stocks on Wednesday as BTC briefly dipped below $66,000.

ARK purchased 433,806 shares of Robinhood (HOOD) for approximately $33.8 million, according to a trade notification reviewed by Cointelegraph.

The asset manager also boosted its exposure to crypto exchange Bullish (BLSH) and USDC (USDC) issuer Circle (CRCL), acquiring 364,134 shares valued at $11.6 million and 75,559 shares worth $4.4 million, respectively.

The purchases came as all three stocks traded lower on the day, with Robinhood shares sliding nearly 9%, according to TradingView data.

ARK withheld from buying more Coinbase (COIN) shares after dumping $17 million of the stock last week.

Robinhood becomes top crypto holding in ARK’s flagship fund

ARK’s latest Robinhood acquisition coincided with the company’s official testnet launch of the Robinhood Chain, a permissionless layer 2 (L2) blockchain built for financial services and tokenized real-world assets (RWAs).

Earlier this week, Robinhood reported record net revenue of nearly $1.28 billion for the fourth quarter of 2025. While revenue surged 27% year over year, it fell short of Wall Street expectations of $1.34 billion, sending the stock down about 8%.

As of Feb. 11, Robinhood stands as the largest crypto-linked position in ARK’s flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK), accounting for roughly 4.1% of the portfolio, or about $248 million, according to the fund’s data.

Spot Bitcoin ETFs mirror BTC weakness as inflows stall

Broader market weakness has spilled over into US spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which failed to sustain momentum after a three-day inflow streak.

According to SoSoValue data, Bitcoin ETFs recorded $276.3 million in net outflows on Wednesday, nearly wiping out weekly gains, which now stand at just $35.3 million. Total assets under management declined to $85.7 billion, the lowest level since early November 2024.

Ether (ETH) ETFs also posted losses, with daily outflows totaling $129.2 million. XRP (XRP) funds saw no inflows, while Solana (SOL) ETFs recorded modest inflows of roughly $0.5 million.

Related: Strategy CEO eyes more preferred stock to fund Bitcoin buys

At the time of publication, Bitcoin was trading at $67,227, up 0.4% over the past 24 hours, according to CoinGecko.

The latest pullback comes after analysts had pointed to a potential inflection point in crypto investment products following three consecutive weeks of outflows totaling more than $3 billion.

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