Binance to Remove Trading Pairs for FTX Token—Except With Stablecoin BUSD

Binance is shutting down a slew of trading pairs and contracts featuring FTT, except for one involving its own stablecoin, the crypto exchange announced today.

FTT is the native utility token for the now-bankrupt FTX exchange, which gave holders trading fee discounts. The token’s value has nosedived since the start of the platform’s liquidity crisis.

All margin pairs, futures contracts, and Binance Flexible Products for FTX’s native token were also delisted from the exchange on Monday morning, the company said in an announcement.

Several spot trading pairs will be removed, with trade ceasing on FTT pairs with Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether, and Binance Coin on November 15.

Users will still be able to trade FTT in a pair with Binance’s own stablecoin, BUSD.

“At Binance we conduct regular reviews of listed assets to ensure they meet our standards to protect our users,” the exchange said on Twitter. “Based on our recent reviews, we will remove and cease trading of several FTT trading pairs.”

By scrapping its margin pairs on FTT, Binance is also closing out users’ ability to short the token now that its ill-fated issuer is collapsing.

It comes shortly after the exchange's founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao clarified that his company never shorted FTX’s token.

“Full disclosure: Binance never shorted FTT,” CZ tweeted. 

He added that the company still has “a bag of [FTT]” as it stopped selling off the token after FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried called CZ asking for help, which led to the short-lived rescue deal between the two platforms. “Very expensive call,” CZ commented.

As Decrypt reported last week, Binance still holds around 5% of the total FTT supply.

By maintaining trading of FTT but only against its own stablecoin, Binance is sticking to the playbook it established earlier this year in the fallout of the Terra collapse when it removed all trading pairs for both LUNA and UST except for those against BUSD.

FTT deposits were briefly suspended by Binance on Sunday after the exchange noticed a “suspicious movement” of a large amount of the tokens by its contract deployers.

Deposits were reopened again on Monday following an investigation, which concluded the flagged movement was likely “due to FTX’s internal asset consolidation.”