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Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

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Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#101

I'm not defending Binance in any way, but this is FUD that is getting blown out of the water (arguably, people are on edge these days). It was pre-announced downtime for a hardfork on their BSC chain. https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1602510004795367424 It has caused a bit of a bank run and cz says things are processing just fine (along with tons of 3rd party confirmations). https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status…

I know HN wants to see crypto die in a giant ball of flaming fire, Or maybe crypto has always been a "giant ball of flaming fire" and HN is just trying to discourage people from throwing real money into it.

No post body was provided.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like they trusted two (well actually three if you count US gov) centralized entities instead of one. It's like asking permission from both momma and pappa to eat desert. They should have just depended on the single entity backing USDC rather than putting themselves in a situation where they'd be also be fucked if Binance froze by leaving their tokens on exchange. When you put USD backed stablecoin on exchange yo…

> America decided dollars should float in the 70s, and most of the world followed. Except that a bunch of countries in Europe went back to pegged currency with the Euro[1]. Part of the reason the 2008 crisis hit countries like Italy, Greece, and Ireland so hard. --- 1. Yes - the Euro is not technically pegged; but effectively, it's the same thing. Each individual country in the Eurozone can't engage in independent mo…

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Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#103
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not defending Binance in any way, but this is FUD that is getting blown out of the water (arguably, people are on edge these days). It was pre-announced downtime for a hardfork on their BSC chain. > https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1602510004795367424 >It has caused a bit of a bank run and cz says things are processing just fine (along with tons of 3rd party confirmations). > https://twitter.com/cz_binance/…

Weird flex, I'm fine with my comment and promise that I won't edit it any further. Yes, the downtime was yesterday, scroll up on the thread that I quoted. The FUD started with this tweet: https://twitter.com/Travis_Kling/status/1602400700192985100 The point being that this is FUD, and HN is pushing something full of it. Which is gross and low bar. If Binance does go belly up, it won't be because of USDC withdrawals b…

>The point being that this is FUD, and HN is pushing something full of it. Which is gross and low bar.

With all due respect, the FUD in this thread is coming from you. Taking a look at Binance's announcement about the downtime[1], it mentions withdrawals and deposits both being frozen yesterday morning for a "network upgrade and hard fork", and that ended at about 11PM Eastern[4] yesterday. The withdrawal freeze that this HN thread is about only happened ~3:30AM Eastern today[2] because "[they] have seen an increase of withdrawals" and they needed to perform a swap through a US bank, and deposits remained available (a key difference between the two freezes).

These were two separate freezes that you are conflating into one.

>Hours after that tweet you quoted (which was at 12am), things are processing as normal.

They only started processing as normal at ~11:54AM Eastern, just now[3].

[1]https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/binance-will...

[2]https://twitter.com/binance/status/1602579775721283584

[3]https://twitter.com/binance/status/1602708590271385600

[4]https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1602510004795367424

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#104
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US dollar-like liquidity and value preservation without US dollar financial regulation. Or in other words, they'd like the benefits of regulation without the costs of regulation. Which I certainly appreciate. As a child my plan for adulthood was desserts all the time, no vegetables ever.

More like they trusted two (well actually three if you count US gov) centralized entities instead of one. It's like asking permission from both momma and pappa to eat desert. They should have just depended on the single entity backing USDC rather than putting themselves in a situation where they'd be also be fucked if Binance froze by leaving their tokens on exchange. When you put USD backed stablecoin on exchange yo…

And it will eventually because the FED turned off the fractional reserve requirements.

On March 15th, the Fed lowered the fractional reserve requirement to 0%. Yet, since that day banks have been hoarding cash like never before. pic.twitter.com/jpYF4Ypzjq — Mati Greenspan (tweets ≠ financial advice) (@MatiGreenspan) April 13, 2020

So, a bank can lend out what ever it wants. This is why inflation is high all over the world and the currency milkshake theory is playing out.

"Here's a simplified version: All currencies are doomed because they're not actually valuable. The dollar is slightly better because it's the favorite child. When the Fed stops making more dollars — the frothy “milkshake” — demand for existing dollars goes up.Jul 19, 2022" -- Bloomberg

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#105

I'm not defending Binance in any way, but this is FUD that is getting blown out of the water (arguably, people are on edge these days). It was pre-announced downtime for a hardfork on their BSC chain. https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status/1602510004795367424 It has caused a bit of a bank run and cz says things are processing just fine (along with tons of 3rd party confirmations). https://twitter.com/cz_binance/status…

I will never trust anyone that uses the word "FUD"

No post body was provided.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like they trusted two (well actually three if you count US gov) centralized entities instead of one. It's like asking permission from both momma and pappa to eat desert. They should have just depended on the single entity backing USDC rather than putting themselves in a situation where they'd be also be fucked if Binance froze by leaving their tokens on exchange. When you put USD backed stablecoin on exchange yo…

> America decided dollars should float in the 70s, and most of the world followed. Except that a bunch of countries in Europe went back to pegged currency with the Euro[1]. Part of the reason the 2008 crisis hit countries like Italy, Greece, and Ireland so hard. --- 1. Yes - the Euro is not technically pegged; but effectively, it's the same thing. Each individual country in the Eurozone can't engage in independent mo…

In terms of the Euro, I find it more useful to view the Eurozone as somewhat similar to the US. There's one central monetary policy for really large economies that in a different environment, would have liked to do things independently. It's especially relevant now as US states have GDPs comparable to the Eurozone constituent nations.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#107
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know what token they swapped USDC for? Why would you swap a stable coin for another token? Didn't FTX swap coins for their native currency and use the proceeds for Alameda?

All deposit of USDC automatically converted to BUSD. Actually it makes thing easier for user because now USDC and BUSD always calculated as 1:1 with no swap fee. Crypto pair are more lean since they only need to pair with BUSD. Options to withdraw USDC still available and will use BUSD balance.

Don't forget that Binance has zero trading fees for BUSD pairs.

They've been extending this promotion for a while now...

https://www.binance.com/en/support/announcement/binance-exte...

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because the USDC is being held in a real bank account controlled by some unknown 3rd party who lives in some country without an extradition treaty. Gives you a warm, fuzzy, secure feeling that everything is perfectly safe doesn't it?

how can USDC be held in a real bank account? doesnt make sense

The backing of USDC held in real bank account. They need to move real USD to Circle bank to mint USDC.

Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#109
post #28
post #23

“Crypto sucks. This is proof.” Exchanges going under proves that people are greedy and/or stupid, but it doesn’t inherently mean every crypto project is bad. It doesn’t seem like people holding their own keys are having a bad time right now. Sure, prices of these assets are down, but a hardware wallet is an easy way to make sure your assets don’t end up being given away during a bankruptcy proceeding.

> doesn’t seem like people holding their own keys are having a bad time right now Considering that, instead of owning productive assets that make society better as a whole and provide real value to people, they own tokens that so far do nothing and are only useful due to the exchanges, then yes... that's a pretty bad time.

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Re: Binance freezes withdrawals of stablecoin USDC as investors pull $2B

#110
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> US dollar-like liquidity and value preservation without US dollar financial regulation. Or in other words, they'd like the benefits of regulation without the costs of regulation. Which I certainly appreciate. As a child my plan for adulthood was desserts all the time, no vegetables ever.

Stablecoins have totally valid use cases in the crypto ecosystem that don’t involve skirting regulations. People want something that isn’t volatile. It takes days to deposit and withdraw actual USD from exchanges and requires centralized entities that charge fees (or are totally untrustworthy as we’ve seen). Contracts and dapps can hold and interact with USDC to create useful applications that aren’t just speculative…

Morgan Stanley ised to take a couple of days as well to wire Euros to my bank account. Never ever was that an issue, or something I wanted to solve by using an almast-but-not-really Euro, or Dollar.
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