Binance.US Pauses OTC Trading, Culls 8 Bitcoin Trading Pairs
The exchange also got rid of several BTC trading pairs, including ATOM, DOT, and MANA
Steve Heap/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
Binance.US has indefinitely suspended its over the counter trading platform following an SEC lawsuit into its global counterpart Binance, which has rocked the crypto world over the past three days.
The announcement came roughly three hours ago via a blog post on the Binance.US site. In it, the exchange told customers that it will notify them “if and when OTC trading becomes available again” in the coming weeks and months.
Deposits and withdrawals remain available, the blog post noted.
It’s important to note that shutting down OTC trading still means retail customers will have the ability to trade on the public exchange. OTC trading refers to instances where people are matched directly with buyers, and typically has the advantage of more liquidity. It’s usually reserved for institutional clients.
Other prominent US crypto exchanges including Kraken and Coinbase also maintain OTC desks, though neither — particularly Coinbase, a company facing a similar SEC crackdown to Binance — have shut down their OTC services.
Binance.US also initially told customers that dozens of USDT trading pairs will be delisted from its advanced trading platform Thursday at 12 pm ET.
Some notable UDST pairs set for removal included AAVE, MKR, MANA, and SUSHI, all of which were down more than 5% over the preceding 24 hours.
But later on Wednesday evening, Binance said it would no longer be delisting the tether pairs. “Following community feedback, Binance.US will no longer remove any USDT Advanced Trading pairs. All cryptocurrencies and USDT pairs remain available to trade.”
The advanced trading interface lets Binance.US users select which trading pair they’d like to use, and the feature is available to all users who have passed the basic verification process.
According to an April post, there were 280+ trading pairs. With its latest rash of delistings, Binance.US has reduced that to 226.
Several bitcoin (BTC) and BUSD trading pairs were removed as well, but all USD trading pairs remain. Binance’s stablecoin BUSD is set to be phased out entirely over the next year by its issuing partner Paxos following an SEC Wells notice.
Binance’s BNB has tanked 8.5% over the past 24 hours and 15% over the past week.
Blockworks reached out to Binance.US but did not receive an immediate response.
Updated Jun. 8, 2023 at 4:28 am ET: Changed headline and added context following Binance’s update.
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