Earlier today, Binance suffered some sort of an outage, although the exchange was working, prices weren’t updating. Binance eventually announced that the platform was undergoing temporary system maintenance and all deposits and withdrawals were suspended.
Additionally, spot and margin trading, P2P trading, OTC Portal trading, savings & redemption, as well as asset transfers from sub-accounts, margin accounts, futures accounts, and fiat wallets were also stopped.
Binance futures have continued unaffected and users can trade there, Binance further noted that the funds are safe and:
You will be notified once the system maintenance is complete. Users will have 30 minutes to cancel orders, make deposits and withdrawals, and make asset transfers, before trading resumes.
Our system detected a potential matching error, and the matching was automatically suspended. We are looking into the issue. May take 30-60 min by initial estimate (may change). Will keep you updated. https://t.co/ryxkV5oRGW
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) December 21, 2020
It seems that Binance system detected a potential ‘matching error’ and everything was stopped to prevent any losses. Although Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, initially stated that it would likely take one or two hours, the exchange remains down, four hours later.
Progressing, all data are intact, funds are #SAFU.
Some parts are taking longer than originally anticipated. Estimate 1-2 more hours ish. Will post an announcement as soon as we have a definitive time. Will allow some time to cancel orders first.
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) December 21, 2020
The most recent tweet states that it will likely take up to 2 hours more to come back, however, all data and funds are safe.
Of course, most people on Twitter were highly critical of CZ and Binance as the exchange has been underperforming recently due to the significant increase in volatility.
Outage problems when Bitcoin price goes up are very common
One of the most notorious exchanges to be affected by Bitcoin’s volatility is Coinbase. Customers of the exchange have complained about it for years as the platform usually goes down when Bitcoin’s volatility rises.
Similarly, BitMEX is also known for ‘exploding’ when Bitcoin goes up or down by a lot and traders are unable to place orders or even cancel them, leading to massive liquidations on the exchange.
Bitcoin price was last seen at $22,646 on Binance but it’s trading at $23,208 on other exchanges since then. It seems that Binance’s outage wasn’t enough to bring the digital asset down, but most customers are really upset as they might have missed a great opportunity to buy the dip.