The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, Binance, said on Monday that it would stop accepting deposits and withdrawals in dollars. The business gave no explanation for the move.
“We are temporarily suspending USD bank transfers as of February 8th,” a Binance spokesperson told the international news agency. “Affected customers are being notified directly.” The company said “0.01% of our monthly active users leverage USD bank transfers” and added that “we are working hard to restart service as soon as possible.”
Binance US statement
The company’s subsidiary Binance US, which is subject to regulation by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the Treasury Department, stated in a tweet that it is unaffected by the ban. Only non-U.S. clients who transfer money to or from bank accounts in dollars are affected by the change.
Following the announcement, there was a substantial increase in withdrawals from the cryptocurrency platform crypto wallets, according to data from Arkham Intelligence, as millions of dollar-pegged stablecoins like tether and USDC migrated to other exchanges or private wallets.
According to DefiLlama data, the cryptocurrency platform lost almost $172 million in U.S. dollars over the day. For a business that, according to Arkham, has crypto assets valued at $42.2 billion, that is a rather small sum of money.
“We’re still overwhelmingly net-positive on net deposits,” the spokesperson said. “Outflows always tick up when prices start to level off following a bullish market swing like we saw last week as some users take profits.”
The strongest month for bitcoin since October 2021 was January, when it increased more than 38%. The revelation had little impact on Binance’s exchange token, BNB, which remained stable at about $328.
The cryptocurrency platform said in late January that U.S. banking partner Signature Bank had raised the threshold for dollar transactions to $100,000. Binance claimed at the time that Signature had informed the exchange that the increased requirement extended to all users of cryptocurrency exchanges.
Regarding Monday’s suspension, a Binance representative told international news agency in an email that “Binance.US has its own banking partners and does not have any issues.” The main Binance exchange does not serve U.S. users.
The cryptocurrency platform said customers can still use other fiat currencies or payment methods to purchase crypto. For the small number affected, “we’ll have a new partner to announce for those users in the next couple weeks,” the spokesperson said.
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