By Weston Blasi
Spot trading and withdrawals at Binance have resumed, the company said.
Crypto exchange Binance said on Friday morning it has resumed spot trading after it temporarily suspended trading due to a “bug.”
Binance tweeted that it was aware of the issue, and exchange CEO Changpeng Zhao — a Chinese-Canadian executive commonly identified as “CZ” — followed up by saying the bug was “a weird one.” Spot trading and withdrawals have since resumed, the company said.
Zhao ended his tweet by repeating a common hashtag for the crypto mogul, “SAFU,” which references the Secure Asset Fund for Users. SAFU is a Binance initiative that takes a portion of trading fees and adds them into a singular fund to be used as safeguard insurance for the company.
At times, the SAFU fund is said to have had a value north of $1 billion, and is comprised of Binance coin (BNB), bitcoin , Tether and TrueUSD (TUSD).
Representatives for Binance did not respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment on this story.
From the archives: Binance CEO says the worst of the crypto crash ‘is probably over’
The disruption at Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, comes a few weeks after the company halted deposits and withdrawals via bank transfers for some U.K.-based customers who use banking partner PaySafe. The change, which impacted less than 1% of Binance users, was executed because of a “challenging” regulatory environment in the U.K, according to a PaySafe representative.
Prices for many top cryptos have moved higher in 2023. Bitcoin prices were hovering just under $28,000 on Friday and are up 68.49% year-to-date. Ethereum prices were trading around $1,700 on Friday and are 47.13% higher year-to-date.
Despite those increases, prices for many cryptos are still down roughly 60% from all-time highs.
Read on: Crypto will be ‘over’ in the U.S. if Coinbase loses battle with SEC, this industry participant says. Here’s why.
-Weston Blasi
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03-24-23 1403ET
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