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Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, temporarily suspended spot trading on the platform due to a bug, the company said via Twitter on 24 March.
According to Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, initial analysis indicated the issue that impacted spot trading came from a bug in the platform’s matching engine — discovered on a trailing stop order — which he expected would be fixed in up to 120 minutes. CZ also noted that all deposits and withdrawals on the platform were paused as a “standard operating procedure”, and assured Binance users that their funds were safe. He also argued that the issue would have no significant impact on the market, saying:
“When the biggest exchange halts trading, prices won’t move much. If it moves on smaller exchanges, when Binance comes back, our deeper orderbook will bring the price back, causing those guys to lose money. Traders know this.”
An hour after spot trading was suspended, Zhao announced that the issue was partly resolved, and that the exchange was bringing “Engine 1” back online. He also noted that more time was needed to do reconciliations, and that it would take a while until the other engines are able to “catch up”.
About two hours after the initial announcement, Binance said it had completed the temporary system maintenance, and that all trading activity on the platform would be resumed by 14:00 UTC, and that withdrawals would be resumed shortly after. CZ also announced that trailing stops would be disabled “for the time being”, and that existing trailing orders will be cancelled.