Wintermute CEO Calls Binance Lawsuit Claims ‘Unfounded Rumors’

Gaevoy stated that Wintermute never intended to take legal action against Binance, despite repeated claims on social media linking the company to ADL’s fallout.

Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy has publicly denied one of the loudest and most persistent rumors circulating since the October 10 liquidation shock: that the cryptocurrency market-making company is preparing to sue Binance.

Gaevoy reiterated on X this week that Wintermute “never had plans to sue Binance,” saying nothing about the company’s position having changed since his statements immediately after the event.

Wintermute-Binance lawsuit rumor

The denial follows multiple messages from pseudonymous market commentators to claim Wintermute sought reimbursement for losses related to Binance’s Auto-Deleveraging (ADL) mechanism during the crash. Gaevoy immediately responded to such a message, and the claim was nothing more than an “unfounded rumor.”

The October event, which has been described by trading agencies as the largest 24-hour liquidation in crypto history, sparked extensive debate over the role of major market makers during forced relaxations. Binance later announced compensation and support measures worth $283 million in refunds, as well as a $400 million recovery initiative for users and institutional agencies. But Wintermute has not confirmed whether it received any compensation from the grant. On October 12, Gaevoy publicly stated that the company was “perfectly fine” after the event.

As rumors of a possible legal showdown continued to gain traction over the past week, a separate but highly viral story also emerged spreadsuggesting that Binance and Wintermute were jointly benefiting from the liquidation cycle.

These claims, which are not supported by public evidence, alleged that Binance regularly transfers large amounts of assets to Wintermute before major sell-offs, and that Wintermute then drives the markets lower to absorb the spread. The claims also cited the large inbound transfer from Wintermute to Binance hours before the October 10 price drop, a detail reported at the time as a routine liquidity rebalancing.

CZ pushes back

Despite the intensity of speculation on social platforms, neither Binance nor Wintermute have hinted at the existence of legal conflicts or internal collapse.

You might also like:

Binance has not directly responded to the Wintermute lawsuit rumor, but the exchange previously stated that there was no favoritism or internal execution error behind the October ADL triggers, adding that the event was driven by extreme public interest that had built up in the weeks prior.

However, the exchange’s founder and former CEO CZ said tweeted,

“If someone has made you believe otherwise, it’s time to hit unfollow.”