BinanceUS suspends USD deposits, says bank partners will pause dollar payments next week

Binance said late Thursday that its banking partners will stop processing its dollar payments as early as next week.

The announcement comes days after the Securities and Exchange Commission announced a lawsuit against the firm as well as crypto exchange giant Binance and its CEO, Changpeng Zhao. The SEC is seeking a freeze on BinanceUS’ assets, though the SEC has asked to court to approve a temporary restraining order that would allow BinanceUS to continue to process withdrawal requests from customers.

The resulting regulatory pressure, BinanceUS said, has “created challenges for the banks with whom we work.”

The exchange said on Twitter:

“As a result, in an effort to protect our customers and platform, today we are suspending USD deposits and notifying customers that our banking partners are preparing to pause fiat (USD) withdrawal channels as early as June 13, 2023. We encourage customers to take appropriate action with their USD.”

In a notice to customers shared on Twitter, BinanceUS said that it “will start delisting USD pairs (e.g., BTC-USD) on our platform, while continuing to support stablecoin pairs (e.g., BTC-USDT).”

The exchange advised customers to withdraw USD via bank transfer “by June 13, 2023” and said, “Due to elevated volumes and weekend bank closures, ACH withdrawals may take longer than usual to process (e.g. up to several days; we appreciate your patience).”

BinanceUS called the moves “proactive steps as we–for a time–transition to a crypto-only exchange. To be clear, we maintain 1:1 reserves for all customer assets.”

BinanceUS announced earlier Thursday that it would remove ten different trading pairs in light of the SEC lawsuit.

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