Binance is a major cryptocurrency trading platform which has become a favorite of traders everywhere, particularly for buying tokens that aren't found on most other exchanges. In fact, hours before his exchange abruptly froze for trading and withdrawals, Binance's founder was featured in Forbes and he will be on the cover of their Feb. 28 issue.
CZ (born Changpeng Zhao) cut his teeth making high-frequency trading systems for Wall Street's flash boys, and he built Binance to be a Ferrari. His exchange can process a blazing 1. 4 million transactions a second and on a peak trading day in January processed 3.5 billion new orders, cancels and trades. Speculators (some 25% of them from the U.S.) use Binance to trade 120 different coins, generating $200 million in profits for CZ's exchange last quarter. BNB, the virtual coin CZ created in August that gives holders a 50% discount on trading fees, has a market cap of $1.3 billion. His stake in Binance and his coins give CZ a personal fortune worth as much as $2 billion.
If CZ's Binance is a Ferrari, then right now it's broken down on the side of the road. Without warning from the company, trading and withdrawals suddenly froze for Binance users yesterday around 11:30pm UTC (6:30pm EST) and have been down ever since. Binance soon responded on Twitter saying "system maintenance" was to blame and that users would experience a "temporary decrease in exchange performance." (In fact, reports on Twitter suggest trading was completely stopped for all users, as it was for this author.)
A few hours later, the Binance account tweeted out a link - which is no longer active - to a report on a "system upgrade extension" which asserted that trading would be open again by 2pm UTC today. Shortly before that time came, Binance sent out a new tweet announcing reopening of trading would be pushed back to 4am UTC on Feb. 9 (11pm EST, Feb. 8) and has been tweeting the same update every two hours since then.
It's encouraging for Binance users that CZ and the company are making an effort to keep users updated and there does not seem to be any evidence at this time that there is anything more going on than some unscheduled site maintenance.
Enter John McAfee.
Binance's response and McAfee's rebuttal:
Meanwhile, the crypto markets have been mostly taking the news in stride with Bitcoin currently trading at $8,300 (up 0.86% 24h).
Do you think it's a hack? Is McAfee spreading FUD? Are you a Binance user with coins on the platform and are you freaking out? Tell me your thoughts in the comments.
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