Bitcoin (BTC) experienced a slight price discount on Binance.US early Friday following the exchange’s announcement that it will transition to a crypto-only platform starting June 13. According to data from the charting platform TradingView, the bitcoin-U.S. dollar pair on Binance.US was trading at least $130 below prices on Coinbase and other major exchanges.
Clara Medalie, a director at Paris-based crypto data provider Kaiko, noted that “BTC now trades at a slight discount on Binance.US.” She attributed this to the news of a possible halt in USD withdrawals, which led to an increase in BTC selling as traders hurried to withdraw their assets from the exchange.
Binance.US took to Twitter late Thursday to inform users that it would no longer accept dollar deposits and cautioned that its banking partners were preparing to pause fiat withdrawal channels as of June 13. The exchange advised clients to retrieve their dollars using bank transfers before the specified date and revealed its plan to delist dollar-denominated pairs starting the following week.
This decision came shortly after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requested a federal court to freeze Binance.US’ assets and filed lawsuits against Binance’s global entity and rival exchange Coinbase for allegedly violating federal securities law. The SEC’s action prompted market makers to withdraw liquidity from Binance.US’ order books, resulting in a significant reduction in market depth. At one point, this led to bitcoin trading at a premium of over $1,000 on the exchange.
