Binance Shuffles Billions of Bitcoin—And Rushes to Reassure Customers

Reported BTC “outflows” from the world’s biggest crypto exchange were not really outflows, Binance says.

By Mat Di Salvo

Binance has burned a huge amount of its BNB. Image: Shutterstock

The world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange today moved around billions of dollars of its own Bitcoin—leading some to think that it was withdrawing gargantuan amounts of crypto.   

Binance moved over $5 billion in the biggest cryptocurrency since yesterday, representing nearly 30% of the exchange’s net BTC reserve balance.

Data from Coinglass showed that over 183,080 BTC flowed out of the exchange in 24 hours, prompting some experts to comment on the “unusual” movements—and spooking others. 

The movements came just after Binance temporarily paused BTC withdrawals on its platform. But Binance later said that the transfers were nothing to worry about.

“We’re aware that some data are showing a large volume of outflows from Binance,” the exchange said on Twitter. “This ‘outflow’ [sic] are actually movements between Binance hot and cold wallets due to the BTC address adjustments.”

A Binance spokesperson told Decrypt that the movements were not reason for concern, pointing to a tweet from CryptoQuant head of research Julio Moreno, who said the movements were down to “newly created change addresses” owned by the exchange. 

As the world’s biggest digital asset exchange, users keep an eye on large Binance transactions. Such movements can often be interpreted as signals of investor confidence in the company—or the lack thereof. 

Billions of dollars in crypto flowed out of Binance in December in a 24-hour period, for example, leading some to speculate on whether its reserves were secure. Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao said at the time that the withdrawals were “business as usual.”

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And billions flowed out of the exchange last month after the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) hit the exchange with a lawsuit for allegedly violating trading and derivatives rules. 

CZ shrugged off the withdrawals on Twitter as “small.”