Crypto: Binance briefly suspended spot trading after glitch. CZ says ‘Funds are #SAFU.’

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Crypto exchange Binance said on Friday morning it has resumed spot trading after it temporarily suspended trading due to a “bug.”

Binance tweeted that it was aware of the issue, and exchange CEO Changpeng Zhao — a Chinese-Canadian executive commonly identified as “CZ” — followed up by saying the bug was “a weird one.” Spot trading and withdrawals have since resumed, the company said.

Zhao ended his tweet by repeating a common hashtag for the crypto mogul, “SAFU,” which references the Secure Asset Fund for Users. SAFU is a Binance initiative that takes a portion of trading fees and adds them into a singular fund to be used as safeguard insurance for the company.

At times, the SAFU fund is said to have had a value north of $1 billion, and is comprised of Binance coin (BNB), bitcoin
BTCUSD,
-1.53%
,
Tether
USDTUSD,
-0.04%

and TrueUSD (TUSD).

Representatives for Binance did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment on this story.

From the archives: Binance CEO says the worst of the crypto crash ‘is probably over’

The disruption at Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, comes a few weeks after the company halted deposits and withdrawals via bank transfers for some U.K.-based customers who use banking partner PaySafe. The change, which impacted less than 1% of Binance users, was executed because of a “challenging” regulatory environment in the U.K, according to a PaySafe representative.

Prices for many top cryptos have moved higher in 2023. Bitcoin prices were hovering just under $28,000 on Friday and are up 68.49% year-to-date. Ethereum prices were trading around $1,700 on Friday and are 47.13% higher year-to-date.

Despite those increases, prices for many cryptos are still down roughly 60% from all-time highs.

Read on: Crypto will be ‘over’ in the U.S. if Coinbase loses battle with SEC, this industry participant says. Here’s why.

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