Binance Suspended LUNA and UST Withdrawals. What's Going On?

Binance causes a stir by halting LUNA and UST withdrawals. Were they right to do so?

While the crypto market continues to experience difficulties, Binance made an interesting move by restricting LUNA and UST withdrawals within their platform temporarily, citing high transaction volumes as the catalyst. Terra’s stablecoin recently lost its peg, sending crypto investors into a frenzy.

Many of Binance’s users around the world have expressed their distaste for this move, comparing it with the problems of past financial systems. Will the promise of future restrictions cause Binance users to seek out other exchanges?

Centralized control

Much of the Binance community worldwide has expressed their disappointment about Binance’s decision to halt withdrawals for two of the most popular types of cryptocurrency. This decision serves to stop many investors from choosing their moment to sell in a constantly shifting market, and reminds Binance users they are not in control of the digital currency they entrust to Binance at the end of the day. Many have declared that this kind of decision-making hierarchy is a way of the past, proclaiming that since customers hold onto their own keys, they should be able to use those keys to get access to their coins when they want them.

The world is shifting toward community-driven decision-making hierarchies as more and more decentralized systems are instituted. Users are getting tired of being subject to the decisions of a single voice. Today’s users want the freedom that decentralized exchanges can offer, and this move by Binance could push them to seek out that freedom in other exchanges.

The decentralized future

Binance provides service to millions of users around the globe, and any purposeful choice to restrict access to any part of their service could prove to be detrimental to many users. The choice to restrict withdrawals of two different top 10 coins being imposed on users is not likely to sit well with many investors. With so many choices for cryptocurrency exchanges out there, Binance needs to give users a gesture of good faith in order to ensure they stick around.

As more things like this happen, the world is seeing the benefits that can come from a decentralized form of leadership. More enterprises may soon find themselves adopting a system of decentralized governance, transitioning from monarchy-like leadership hierarchies to more democratic, community-oriented systems.

The bottom line

Binance’s suspension of transactions on the Terra network may have cleared up a bottleneck, but it may come at a high cost for Binance, as many users seem to be walking away with a bad taste in their mouths. With centralized exchanges like Binance, users find themselves at the mercy of Binance’s leadership without any say in the matter of their own money. While Binance has already reinstated withdrawals for LUNA and UST, it could be too late for some users. If enough investors decide that they would be better served by a decentralized exchange, Binance’s total number of users could take a hit because of their decision.

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