Popular cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, had two days ago informed its users of a system upgrade that would last 4 hours. The upgrade would begin today, 26th June, at 2 AM (UTC). However, the upgrade has taken longer than the team at Binance had anticipated and is still in progress at the moment of writing this.
The team at Binance was quick to notify its users of the delay and asked for patience from their loyal user base. In the announcement via the Binance website, the team acknowledged the following:
Fellow Binancians,
Binance’s ongoing system upgrade will be extended. Our team is working hard to complete the upgrade as quickly as possible.
Another announcement will be made once the upgrade is complete. Users will be given approximately 30 minutes to cancel existing orders, deposit, withdraw and use other account functions before trading resumes. Please stay tuned for further information.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused, and thank you for your patience.
Thank you for your support.
The team would later make a similar announcement stating that the system upgrade was complete and that trading activities would resume at 9:30 AM (UTC). However, the team at Binance has issued another announcement stating that they have postponed the start of trading and withdrawals due to a warning from a pre-trade check in the exchange’s risk management system.
The announcement was as follows:
Fellow Binancians,
Due to a warning from a pre-trade check in our risk management system, we will postpone the start of trading and withdrawals.
Please stay tuned for more information regarding the reopening of trading and withdrawals.
We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Thanks for your support!
But if the delay is to improve services to the users of Binance, then the team have nothing to fear for their postponement is justified. In the current crypto-age of exchanges being hacked, the safety of funds is a number one priority for exchanges and crypto traders. Coinrail and Bithumb lost $40 Million and $30 Million respectively due to hacks and in a period of less than 2 weeks between the two events. Going back in time, we find that Coincheck lost a bigger amount of $500 Million in Nem (XEM) due to a hack.
It is with such a history of hackings that the team of Binance have probably made the executive decision to postpone the start of trading at withdrawals. The exchange currently handles around $1 Billion in daily trade volume. When crypto trading was at its peak in January, that amount had doubled to $2 Billion and above. This two values are a large mount of digital assets to safe guard at any one time for an exchange.
