The cryptocurrency exchange Binance has halted withdrawals for a number of assets and restricted the accounts of some users due to ‘anomalous price movements in certain trading pairs’.
This activity does not appear to be due to compromised accounts or stolen API keys; funds are SAFU.
We will update this thread should there be any new information.
— Binance (@binance) December 11, 2022
«We are aware of anomalous price movements in some trading pairs on Binance, including assets such as SUN, ARDR, OSMO, FUN and GLM. […] This activity is not related to compromised accounts or stolen API keys; funds are safe», — said the exchange in a statement.
The events appear to date from December 10. For example, Cosmo (OSMO) quotes on Binance surged 460% at one point, before crashing back near previous levels. A similar pattern was observed in the other assets mentioned.
According to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, during the investigation the company found that the anomalous price fluctuations were linked to ‘market behaviour’. He added that Binance temporarily blocked withdrawals for accounts that ‘made profits’ from the relevant trades.
We temporarily locked withdrawals on some of the profiting accounts, which caused a lot of complaints on social media, all from different countries. 2/3 https://t.co/nWSBhn3GrE
— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) December 11, 2022
«We are aware of the notion of excessive platform intervention, ‘overly centralized’ attacks, and so on. There is a balance in how much we should intervene. Sometimes such measures are necessary in a free market, and we had to end it,» he added.
In November 2022, Binance expanded the size of the SAFU-fund to $1 billion.
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