Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange Binance has resumed its trading services following a suspension earlier this week that sparked concerns it had been hacked.
In an update from the exchange it said:
“Binance has completed its system upgrade and we expect all trading activity to resume at 10:00 AM (UTC).”
As a way of showing its ‘gratitude’ to the support it had received from its users during the upgrade process, Binance said that it would ‘provide all users with a 70 percent discount on trading fees’ until the 24th February.
Binance added:
“We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and your patience is greatly appreciated.”
As reported by Ethereum World News, the crypto exchange denied that it had been hacked on Wednesday after it suspended customer withdrawals for a system upgrade. Nonetheless, this did little to quash fears that the exchange had been compromised. Computer programmer and bitcoin advocate John McAfee questioned why the suspension was not announced, claiming that he wasn’t trying to create FUD, but to understand. As a result, Binance strongly responded on social media, adding that:
“Blockchain thankfully provides a public ledger that can disprove any FUD.”
First launched in 2017, Binance has become one of the largest trading platforms in the world. However, with interest in the digital currency market continuing, investors are becoming easily spooked when exchanges go down for any particular reason. And rightly so.
The recent suspension at Binance sparked concerns given the hack at Japanese cryptocurrency exchange Coincheck. At the end of January, it was reported that $530 million worth of NEM tokens had been stolen. Coincheck is expected to resume yen withdrawals from Tuesday after freezing yen and digital currency withdrawals following the theft. While it has not given any further details, it said that it plans to resume cryptocurrency withdrawals ‘as soon as possible.’
Zhao Changpeng, the founder and CEO of Binance, and who recently featured on the front cover of Forbes as one of the richest people in the digital currency community, also denied the hacking rumours, stating that it was required to finish the system upgrade.
Following the system upgrade, however, Binance noted on Twitter that users may experience some issues. According to Changpeng, there was a DDoS attack on the website’s cloud provider. Notably, while the problem has been resolved, he added that there may be ‘some lingering effects.’
