Binance issues warning, suspends trading and withdrawals

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A four-hour scheduled upgrade of the Binance cryptocurrency exchange on Tuesday appeared to have gone as planned. However, following the completion of the upgrade, the exchange issued a notice that it would continue to suspend trading and withdrawals following a “risk warning.”

In a notice on the company’s website, Binance wrote, “Due to a warning from a pre-trade check in our risk management system, we will postpone the start of trading and withdrawals. Please stay tuned for more information regarding the reopening of trading and withdrawals. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.”

After the completion of the upgrade, Binance announced on its site that it would resume trading at 9:30 AM (UTC). Between that notice and the next, something triggered the alert that forced the exchange to continue the suspension.

A subsequent notice on the company’s website announced that it would resume trading and deposits at 20:00 PM (UTC), while withdrawals would still be delayed by another one to two hours. It now appears that it’s all systems go for the crypto exchange and everything has returned to normal.

This is the latest in a number of service suspensions seen by the exchange this year. It suspended all services in January for a service upgrade and again in February. The exchange also suspended deposits and withdrawals of certain cryptocurrencies briefly last month.

Binance isn’t alone. Kraken experienced a delay following an upgrade in January and was ultimately down for over 48 hours. As the exchanges worked quickly to implement platforms to meet demand, there were bound to be some issues. As regulations become more clear, the exchanges are also forced to introduce changes to meet new requirements.

According to CoinMarketCap, Binance is the third most-active exchange by daily trading volume. In the past 24 hours, it has traded approximately $104 billion in crypto. It trades in all of the top coins, as well as other digital currency such as ICON, Tron and VeChain.

The exchange was originally founded in China, but later moved to Japan in anticipation of regulation changes in China. This past March, it opened an office in Taiwan and, at the same time, was accused—long with OKEx and Huobi—of inflating numbers to make itself look better. One report alleged that the exchange had fabricated as much as 92.9% of its trading volume. Binance has since announced that it would open an office in Malta after regulations were tightened in Japan, and has also said that it could move to Jersey to attract a larger European market.