Binance Suspends USDC Stablecoin Withdrawals
Binance, the world’s biggest crypto exchange, said on Tuesday that it had “temporarily paused” withdrawals of the major stablecoin USDC.
Following the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange, transparency and restoring confidence have become an industry priority.
On December 7, the auditing firm Mazars released a report commissioned by Binance that appears to show that its Bitcoin reserves are fully collateralized.
Binance has moved to defend its position.
“On USDC, we have seen an increase in withdrawals,” Binance’s chief executive Changpeng Zhao tweeted”
Swapping USDC Coin with two other crypto tokens – Paxos Standard and Binance USD – requires using traditional dollars at a bank in New York, Zhao added.
“The banks are not open for another few hours. We expect the situation will be restored when the banks open.”
The swaps are “1:1 conversions, no margin or leverage involved. We will also try to establish more fluid swap channels in the future,” he added.
Binance said in a separate tweet the halt was due to a “token swap” – where digital token holders exchange their crypto coins, typically over different blockchains. # Binance Suspends USDC Stablecoin Withdrawal
