Binance to Temporarily Suspend Withdrawal on Feb. 8

One of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges Binance is set to temporarily suspend bank transfers or withdrawals to US dollars on Feb. 8 while other means of payment will still be operational as per the latest report. 

From February 8th, we will temporarily suspend all USD bank transfers.

Only a small proportion of our users will be impacted by this and we are working hard to restart the service as soon as possible.

All other methods of buying and selling crypto remain unaffected.

— Binance (@binance) February 6, 2023

Meanwhile, Binance did not provide any justification or explanation to that effect but it maintains that it does not apply to Binance.US users as only 0.01% of active users will be affected by the latest development. 

Hello! We are NOT suspending $USD withdrawals & deposits on February 8. This news is only for https://t.co/yyaz1ed4VD users. We are completely separate entities from https://t.co/yyaz1ed4VD.

— Binance.US Customer Support (@BinanceUShelp) February 6, 2023

It is instructive to note that the announcement came without warning barely two days in advance. The read partly reads:

“We are working hard to restart the service as soon as possible… All other methods of buying and selling crypto remain unaffected.”

Speaking on the development, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) emphasised that the USD bank transfers are only leveraged by only 0.01% of the exchange’s monthly users. While he acknowledged that it was a bad experience, he promised to resolve it speedily. 

It is worth noting that USD bank transfers are leveraged by only 0.01% of our monthly active users.

However, we appreciate that this is still a bad user experience and the team is working on quickly resolving this issue. https://t.co/heCfWIomAX

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) February 6, 2023

However, CZ tacitly linked the development to the policy of some banks refusing to support crypto withdrawal. He explained while some banks were moving in to support crypto, others pulled out thereby serving as setbacks. 

While some banks withdrawing support for crypto, other banks are moving in. Some setbacks were expected from last year's incidents. Long term, keep building.

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) February 6, 2023

It is noteworthy that Binance has been experiencing banking challenges in the United States recently. Its SWIFT transfer partner, Signature Bank, on Jan. 21 disclosed that it would no longer process trades into USD bank accounts above $100,000 from Feb. 1.

A Review of the Binance Payment System

In a bid to intimate customers of development on crypto withdrawal to USD bank accounts, Binance on Feb. 1 published a list of 444 countries where USD SWIFT transfers would be suspended going forward.

There is no mincing word that Binance had had a fair share of the growing challenges facing the crypto space. Recall that Binance recorded more than $1.14 billion outflow on Dec 13 even though the exchange remains undaunted and functional. 

Nonetheless, Binance was adorned as the most dominant crypto exchange in 2022 following a comprehensive review of crypto exchanges by Arcane Research.