Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

markets.businessinsider.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 309 posts

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

#131

Post by rglullis »

rufusroflpunch wrote: post #113
hef19898 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not really any less of a dollar than any other dollar is. All of our digital dollars are just bank liabilities. Circle and Tether are just banks with dollar liabilities. Their liabilities can be transferred on crypto networks rather than traditional bank wires.

> Circle and Tether are just banks with dollar liabilities.

But no regulatory oversight, and no chance for the common folk to prosecute or get their money back if they default.

I am one of the resident crypto apologists here on HN, but there is no way that we should even try to accept what the big exchanges are doing. The whole point of crypto is to have systems that do not depend on "too big to fail" institutions, why are we suddenly trying to find excuses for their BS?

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

#132

Post by soerxpso »

Octokiddie wrote: post #22

> The world's biggest crypto exchange will freeze all withdrawals of USD Coin while it conducts a "token swap" to boost its holdings of the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, the crypto group's CEO Changpeng Zhao said Tuesday It's worth noting that USDC is not even a token controlled by Binance. It's controlled and issued by Circle. So effectively, Binance is refusing to honor its commitment to depositors to give them the…

> So effectively, Binance is refusing to honor its commitment to depositors to give them their money on demand. That's called a "default."

What? So if I go into the bank at 4 AM and ask to withdraw $100,000, and they respond, "Sure, we'll need a few hours to get those funds together," the bank has defaulted?

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

#133

Post by gamblor956 »

bellip wrote: post #94
Octokiddie wrote: post #22

> The world's biggest crypto exchange will freeze all withdrawals of USD Coin while it conducts a "token swap" to boost its holdings of the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, the crypto group's CEO Changpeng Zhao said Tuesday It's worth noting that USDC is not even a token controlled by Binance. It's controlled and issued by Circle. So effectively, Binance is refusing to honor its commitment to depositors to give them the…

Yes, it's digital already. However banks manage the whole system and they can do whatever they want with your money if you are nobody. I have been waiting for 2 and a half months for an international payment via SWIFT, I worked long hours for that money and I needed it urgently. The money left the sender's account 2 and a half months ago. Neither of us has the money in our accounts while the bank tells us to just wai…

SWIFT does not take 2 months; it takes minutes or hours. Your bank already has your money or it never received it.

More likely, they are holding your money due to some issues with your local KYC laws. (This is especially likely in South America, where foreign senders must verify the source and purpose of payments made to local residents.)

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

#134

Post by JaggerFoo »

Wow, a lot of histrionics in the comments.

Like a wise man once said: "First principles, Clarice: simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius, Of each particular thing, ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature?"

The article is dealing with a foreign unregulated crypto-exchange and a US regulated stable coin.

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

#135

Post by jjulius »

latchkey wrote: post #127
jjulius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Quoted post unavailable.

I... never said that you did? I know you don't, your first post suggests that you and I both want to see crypto go up in flames. That said, defending Binance isn't a prerequisite for spreading FUD. What I'm saying is that you are wrong about this withdrawal freeze being a "pre-announced downtime for a hardfork on their BSC chain" - it is an entirely separate freeze. Here's a really condensed version of what's happened here:

  Binance: "Hey guys, we're gonna have some down time soon for a fork."
  Binance: "Hey guys, here's our planned downtime."
  Binance: "Hey guys, our planned downtime is over."
  Binance: "Oops, hey, there have been a lot of withdrawals, we're freezing them."
  HN: "Oh wow, there was a run on Binance and now they've frozen withdrawals, shouldn't they have the cash?"
  You: "Stop spreading FUD, this was just a planned downtime."
  Me: "No it wasn't, here's proof."
  You: "This is FUD, it was just a planned downtime."
  Me: "... here's more proof?"
  You: "I said I wasn't defending Binance."
Make sense?

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

#136

Post by vkou »

Octokiddie wrote: post #22

> The world's biggest crypto exchange will freeze all withdrawals of USD Coin while it conducts a "token swap" to boost its holdings of the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, the crypto group's CEO Changpeng Zhao said Tuesday It's worth noting that USDC is not even a token controlled by Binance. It's controlled and issued by Circle. So effectively, Binance is refusing to honor its commitment to depositors to give them the…

These aren't fractional reserve systems, a fractional reserve system requires liquid and illiquid assets to exceed liabilities.

This is just a fraud. :) You can tell, because they seem to be incapable of passing anything resembling an audit.

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

#137

Post by sillysaurusx »

latchkey wrote: post #127
jjulius wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Quoted post unavailable.

I know it's s hard to keep cool in a heated thread, but it's better to just address the points one by one. In this case, they seem to have made some good points, even if they're being incredibly aggressive for no apparent reason.

Keep it up.

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

#138

Post by jankyxenon »

latchkey wrote: post #40

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…

The opposite of fear, uncertainty and doubt would be something like optimism, certitude and faith.

I'd rather apply a lens of FUD to hard problems than the latter.

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

#139

Post by vkou »

fallingknife wrote: post #88
dboreham wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait...they're refusing to allow on-chain transfer of USDC from their custodial account to a customer's wallet? I assumed this was about exchange of USDC to fiat, hence the hand waving about banks.

Not your key, not your crypto.

This seems like a major bug with crypto. I don't have physical possession of my bed when I get up from it and go to work, but I've yet to come home and discover a grifter, or conman sleeping in it.

Likewise, if I lose my car keys, society still manages to acknowledge that I am still the owner of my car.

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

#140

Post by jerf »

Octokiddie wrote: post #22

> The world's biggest crypto exchange will freeze all withdrawals of USD Coin while it conducts a "token swap" to boost its holdings of the dollar-pegged cryptocurrency, the crypto group's CEO Changpeng Zhao said Tuesday It's worth noting that USDC is not even a token controlled by Binance. It's controlled and issued by Circle. So effectively, Binance is refusing to honor its commitment to depositors to give them the…

'So effectively, Binance is refusing to honor its commitment to depositors to give them their money on demand. That's called a "default."'

Not in $CURRENT_YEAR it's not. In $CURRENT_YEAR it's not a default until the holder in question publicly and willingly admits it's a default. Otherwise, it's just a technical maintenance period, or a temporary suspension of withdrawal rights, or a customer-value preserving intervention, or a response to current market conditions, or just another step on our amazing journey to world-class reliability and customer satisfaction, or whatever, and only crazy conspiracy theorists who are probably going to be happy staying poor would say that a default is as simple as "you ask for something that is yours and you don't get it", regardless of the reasons why you don't get it.

That is sooo $CURRENT_YEAR-1 of you to think something so simplistic and unsophisticated. Clearly there are just a ton of reasons why you might ask for something that is yours, and not get it, that aren't anything as ugly as a default. Please. So plebian. And I can hardly believe that some knuckle-dragging cretins think a default should be treated by everyone as a default rather than just sort of glossed over with a vaguely stern look on your face before proceeding on as if nothing has happened.

(For a bit of context, it's not just the cryptocurrency space that has forgotten the fundamentals lately & I have to admit I'm getting a bit crabby about it. There is a time and a place for nuance, and there is a time and place for stubborn insistence on basic facts of reality and waving away any attempt at "nuance" as obfuscatory lies. The definition of default is one of them. Either you return my stuff on demand or you don't. Explaining why you failed your obligations does not mean that you met your obligations.)

Post reply on HN