Research firm says Binance withdrawals jump to $3 billion in 24 hours CNN Business
Hong Kong
CNN
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Investors withdrew up to $3 billion from Binance on Tuesday, according to blockchain analytics firm Nansen, as the world’s largest. Cryptocurrency The stock exchange faced investor jitters amid an avalanche of negative headlines about the industry.
Andrew Thurman, chief content officer at Nansen, told CNN that at its peak, Binance saw “a spike of up to $3 billion in net outflows” over the course of 24 hours. He said a report of an ongoing investigation by the US Department of Justice into the stock exchange was a factor in investor jitters.
“At the same time, it was discovered that a large market maker, Jump, had withdrawn huge amounts of no-deposit from Binance over the past few weeks — which ultimately appears to be causing tension between retail and institutional users,” said Thurman. “In short, a lot of money has been spent, and this has spooked some people.”
Jump Crypto is part of the Jump Trading Group, a quantitative trading company.
Earlier on Tuesday, Binance had already seen its “highest daily withdrawals since June.” According to Nansen’s analysis. The rate of withdrawals has since leveled off to nearly $79 million in net outflows, company data as of Tuesday evening ET showed.
Investors in the industry, already reeling from the “crypto winter” caused by the May collapse of Terraform Labs, are dealing a huge blow from the fall of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which declared bankruptcy in November. Sam Bankman-Fred, the founder of FTX, was arrested in the Bahamas this week after US prosecutors filed criminal charges against him.
Binance also made headlines. On Monday, Reuters reported, citing anonymous sources, that US prosecutors are considering ending a money laundering investigation into Binance by “filing criminal charges against individual executives including its founder Changpeng Zhao.”
The US Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside of US business hours.
In a statement to CNN, Binance said: “As has been widely reported, regulators are conducting thorough reviews of every crypto company. “
“This nascent industry has grown rapidly and Binance has demonstrated its commitment to security and compliance through significant investment in our team as well as the tools and technology we use to detect and deter illicit activity,” the company spokesperson added.
Zhao acknowledged the flow situation on Tuesday, Twitter Binance has at one point seen “some withdrawals” of around $1.1 billion.
“I’ve seen this before. Some days we have net withdrawals; some days we have net deposits. Business as usual for us,” he wrote.
In a post on Twitter, the billionaire sought to sound an optimistic note, noting that it was a “good idea” for every cryptocurrency exchange to face “stress test withdrawals” in general. is later added Tuesday’s outflows weren’t among the highest the company has handled.
In a statement to CNN, Binance added: “All user assets on Binance are backed 1:1 and Binance’s capital structure is debt-free.”
Binance initially offered to help save smaller rival FTX, before pulling out of the deal last month.
On Tuesday, Bankman Fried was indicted in the US on eight criminal counts, including fraud and conspiracy. Separately, US market regulators have also accused Bankman Fried of defrauding investors and customers.
Known as “SBF,” Bankman-Fried is a cryptocurrency celebrity who became an overnight pariah as his company suffered a liquidity crisis and filed for bankruptcy last month, leaving at least 1 million depositors unable to access their funds.
CNN’s Matt Egan and Alison Morrow contributed to this report.
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