I honestly expected more from the HN crowd. The comments here are disturbingly inaccurate and fear mongering. For those of you that don't want to sift through the BS and just get the gist (from someone deep in this space):
- Binance suspended USDC withdrawals. You can still withdraw in other stablecoins, fiat, or crypto. You can withdraw BUSD and swap to USDC on another exchange (dex). So really, this is not a big deal.
- The reason why this happened is - a while ago, Binance started automatically converting user USDC to BUSD upon deposits. Since then, we've then seen large amounts of USDC being sent to Circle from Binance, supposedly for redemption purposes.
- This now (likely) means that Binance has a lot of cash on hand, but not enough USDC to process the current withdrawal frenzy. So they have to go to their redemption bridge and convert their cash back to USDC. As such, the explanation given by CZ is very plausible.
- Withdrawal suspensions are not an uncommon occurrence on Binance, or any other exchange for that matter. You are only noticing this now because the market participants suffer from PTSD from other exchanges going under and the effect of the news is amplified.
- The fear seems to be largely coming from people associating the withdrawal suspension with the recent FTX fiasco. However, and especially without understanding the context of those suspensions, its important to remember - correlation does not mean causation.
- It also comes from people expecting Binance to have USDC at 1:1 ratio liquid, but thats not the case due to the auto conversion mentioned, and explained, by Binance.
- Its also worth noting that BUSD is not a Binance product. Its managed by Paxos, which is a separate entity.
Ultimately, the r/r here is clear: it takes little effort to withdraw and stay safe, but the downside is huge if Binance goes under. So its natural for people to decide to withdraw even when chances of it blowing up are slim.
Withdraw your coins if you are worried, preferably via fiat to a bank. But, please, don't go around spreading panic about things you don't understand or lack the context to judge.