In a recent revelation, Binance has announced it will further remove more trading pairs from its platform. Notably, the exchange will execute the delisting into a phased manner starting from June 14th.
According to Binance’s announcement, it is going to delist about 14 fiat trading pairs from its platform which also includes some BNB and BUSD linked options. The exchange’s decision to further delist a total of 14 trading pairs comes amid the ongoing case with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The exchange advised users to update or cancel trading bots for the pairs before it terminates their operations.
Users are strongly advised to update and/or cancel their trading bots prior to the cessation of trading bots services to avoid any potential losses.
As per the announcement on Binance’s website, the affected pairs will be removed on Wednesday in three phases with small intervals. The listed pairs and their respective slots are as follows:
- At 03:00 (UTC): BIFI/BUSD, DASH/BNB, FIO/BUSD, GAL/BNB, ILV/BNB, KLAY/BNB
- At 06:00 (UTC): LIT/ETH, MC/BNB, MINA/BNB, MLN/BUSD, ONE/ETH, OXT/BUSD
- At 08:00 (UTC): PEOPLE/BNB, PEOPLE/ETH, QNT/BNB, WAXP/BNB, XTZ/ETH, ZEC/BNB, ZRX/ETH
On being asked about the reason, the exchange declined to explicitly specify why it canceled the trading pairs but affirmed that customers could continue trading affected cryptos with other available pairs. Nonetheless, the news evidently comes as the exchange recorded a reported $8 billion in outflows after the SEC sued it last week.
However, referring to these losses, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao tweeted on June 10 that some third parties presented outflows out of context. He added that third parties inaccurately categorize sharp price drops caused by arbitrage traders as outflows. They also don’t consider inflows.
Notably, the problems for Binance have been on an upstick in the past weeks. Last Monday, the Binance’s US subsidiary was hit by an enforcement action from the SEC. The US securities regulator filed 13 charges against Binance.US including unregistered offers and sales of the stablecoins – BNB and BUSD, its services namely the Simple Earn and BNB vault products, and its staking program. Additionally, the regulator claims in its suit that Binance failed to register its online platform as an exchange or a broker-dealer clearing agency.
The day following the lawsuit, the SEC filed an emergency motion in a US court to freeze the assets of Binance.US. While the Binance claimed this motion to be unwarranted, it announced its decision to delist some pairs and also suspended USD withdrawals and deposits to adopt a business model focused solely on cryptocurrencies.
Recently, the exchange also countered SEC’s emergency motion and filed a plea in the court requesting the judicial body to deny SEC’s request. In March the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued CEO Zhao and the COO, Samuel Lim alleging that the company intentionally offered unregistered crypto derivatives products in the U.S. against federal law. As reported by Todayq News amid all these ongoing legal battles, a former SEC official has also hinted at an action on the Binance from the US DoJ on the grounds of money-laundering.
While the crypto industry has criticized the SEC’s anti-crypto approach, recent events including the leaked chats of the exchange’s executive have put the company’s image and compliance into question. However, it is only a matter of few days as the case unfolds and more details can be gained on the exchange.