Binance Halts Trading Again Amidst Users’ Growing Frustration

Major cryptocurrency exchange Binance has run into some issues again, second time in less than a month.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao has tweeted to the exchange’s users that trading has been paused “due to a message broker issue,” assuring them that this is a system issue, not related to funds. “Funds are SAFU,” he says. Some twenty minutes late, the CEO shared that the issue was fixed, and that the system is expected to come online soon.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because some two weeks ago Binance had paused their peer-to-peer (P2P) and most of the trading services, assuring people that the funds are safe. That had come on top of a week of technical and performance issues. At the time, Zhao did say that more issues are to be expected.

A notice of temporary system maintenance has been issued this morning, stating that “deposits, withdrawals, spot trading, margin trading, P2P trading, lending, redemption, as well as asset transfers from sub-accounts, margin accounts, futures accounts, and fiat wallets” have been suspended.

And while there are those who praise Binance’s transparency and response to a problem, many other people’s reactions to today’s announcement show their confusion and frustration with the issues such a large exchange has been facing and their frequency. They’ve been pointing out that the issues are becoming too frequent, that the system must be improved, but also saying that this is not a temporary maintenance – that it’s unscheduled and a potential crisis instead, while some are calling “manipulation,” and saying that they lose will money.

Engineer and technical analyst Pierre argues that funds can’t be SAFU if they can’t be moved. “Will be interesting to see how bitcoin behaves tho. Stay safe homies, this is the daily reminder we’re truly degens trading this immature market,” he adds.

Commenter ‘greataerospacer1’ claims that bitcoin (BTC) dumped after last Binance freeze, and that they lost money, adding that they complained to the exchange, which replied that it wasn’t their fault. (Learn more: Binance CEO Urges ‘Unfairly Affected’ Users to Contact the Exchange )

BTC is currently (10:17 UTC) trading at USD 8,777, having dropped 0.8% in 24 hours and 4% in a week. BNB is changing hands at USD 19.63. It dropped 0.9% in a day, but appreciated 3% in the past seven days. Looking at trading volumes reported by Binance, a dip can be noticed on February 26 from USD 2.8 billion to USD 1.1 billion, but there’s also a slight rise since yesterday to USD 1.5 billion.