• Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, suspended spot trading for two hours due to a software bug related to the trailing stop loss feature.
• The exchange CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao described the outage as “unlucky.”
• Crypto exchanges are prone to experiencing downtime.
Binance Experiences Two-Hour Outage Due to Software Bug
Cryptocurrency exchange Binance suspended trading on its spot markets for two hours Friday because of a computer bug related to the trailing stop loss feature. The world’s largest crypto exchange announced that it suspended spot markets at 11:38 UTC and Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao revealed that “engine one” was back online and that it was waiting for the other engines to catch up. CZ described the event as “unlucky” before stating that the outage followed “standard operating procedure.”
What is a Trailing Stop?
A trailing stop is a type of market order that gradually reduces a position once the price of an asset hits a number of pre-defined price triggers. This allows traders to protect profits while still taking advantage of potential price movements in an asset they hold long or short positions in.
Exchange Suspends Spot Trading Amid Issue
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a follow-up tweet that the issue is expected to be resolved in the coming hours and that the trading pause was a safety measure. The suspension affected all spot markets on Binance, including Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), XRP, Litecoin (LTC) and many others.
Crypto Exchanges Prone To Downtime
Crypto exchanges are prone to experiencing downtime due to technical issues such as this one experienced by Binance, as well as other factors such as security concerns or maintenance activities which can require temporary suspensions of services while they are being addressed by technicians or engineers behind-the-scenes. It is therefore important for traders and investors using these platforms to be aware of these risks when entering into any trades involving cryptocurrency assets on these platforms or through any other mediums such as over-the-counter (OTC) brokers or third party custodial services like Coinbase Custody or Gemini Custody.
Conclusion
Overall, despite this incident resulting in two hours of downtime for Binance users, it appears from CZ’s comments that standard operating procedures were followed and no customer funds were affected during this period. Ultimately though, this serves as an important reminder for traders utilizing any platform – whether centralized exchanges like Binance or decentralized applications running on Ethereum – about how necessary it is to stay informed about these types of incidents so you can make more informed decisions when trading digital assets online