Binance went offline and dragged Bitcoin down

• Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced unscheduled maintenance.
• BTC/USD resumed the decline, though it is still trading within the range.

One of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Binance, suddenly went offline and spooked spot traders. The platform users reported on Twitter that they could not access their accounts and perform basic actions with their orders. The company confirmed the technical issues and explained that the platform had gone for temporary maintenance.

Binance is undergoing temporary system maintenance. Binance has suspended deposits, withdrawals, spot trading, margin trading, P2P trading, lending, redemption, as well as asset transfers from sub-accounts, margin accounts, futures accounts, and fiat wallets. 

Notably, the issues affected only spot trading, while Binance Futures continued operating as usual. The CEO of the exchange Canhpeng Zhao (CZ) also commented on the downtime on Twitter, saying that the issues were related to message broker, while customers’funds were not affected.

System issue, not funds related. Funds are #SAFU.

While his transparency and readiness to keep the community updated are often cheered by the platform users, this time CZ received quite a lot of negative comments. People were disappointed by frequent technical issues as this is the second unscheduled maintenance in less than a month.

BTC/USD under pressure

Meanwhile, BTC/USD retreated from $8,823 to $8,750 following the announcement. Despite the sell-off, the cryptocurrency is still moving within the recent channel with the lower boundary at $8,700, reinforced by SMA100 1-hour. If the downside pressure gains traction, a strong move below this barrier will expose the next support of $8,600. 

On the upside, the short-term recovery is limited by $8,850 with SMA200 1-hour and the intraday high located just below this level. A sustainable move above this area will open up the way to $9,000.

BTC/USD 1-hour chart