Breaking: Binance.US goes down, assures users funds are safe

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance.US has halted all trading and orders following an undisclosed disruption in its system, but has assured users that all funds are safe.

The exchange expects to be down for the next six hours.

“At 11:26am EST, we noticed our systems not functioning as intended. To protect our users, we will be stopping trading, order processing, buy crypto, deposits, and withdrawals. We will let users cancel their orders 30min before we reopen trading. We expect this will take 6 hours,” reads the first tweet that went out.

Binance.US followed that up with a tweet stating that “Funds are #SAFU,” and CEO Catherine Coley added, “We will be updating all of you while we get more information on this situation as our team works diligently to restore service to all of our users. Your funds are safe.”

In response to a question of whether it was a hack, Coley tweeted, “Not hacked. We are working on resolving it ASAP and taking precautions in advance to protect our users.”

It’s not yet clear what happened to cause the disruption in the system, aside from Coley stating that it was not a hack, although it understandably has a lot of users concerned across social media right now.

Just after 2 pm Eastern Time, Binance.US again tried to calm its users by stating this incident "was not a hack." It further clarified that its team "noticed an error that was not allowing users to see their orders and we did not want users trading blindly." The exchange claimed that correcting this required suspending trading activity.

A representative for Binance.US declined Decrypt's request for additional comment, though said the company planned to provide further updates via Twitter.