Binance Resumes Services as System Upgrade Completes

Binance, a Hong Kong-based cryptocurrency exchange, has announced the resumption of all trading activities, including deposits and withdrawals, as of 10:00 UTC today.

In a status update, the platform further said it will lower trading fee by 70 percent until Feb. 24 to show its "gratitude" for users' support through the process.

As reported by CoinDesk, the exchange first posted news of the suspension on Wednesday, citing server issues. The platform later announced that it would take longer than was originally planned to restore normal services. Previously, the exchange had announced that it was planning to resume services at 04:00 UTC today.

The incident subsequently sparked concerns among users of the exchange that it may have been hacked, given similarities with the initial statement from Japan's exchange platform Coincheck amid its recent heist of 500 million NEM tokens.

Zhao Changpeng, founder and CEO of Binance, soon denied the hacking rumor, arguing that the service suspension was necessary for the platform to complete its system upgrade.

However, users may still experience some issues, despite the claimed upgrade completion. Zhao added in a tweet that customers trying to access Binance.com may still face problems, because the website's cloud provider was under DDoS attack. While the issue was being resolved, he said, lingering problems could still exist.

Just prior to press time, he tweeted, "Trading is open!"