Binance issued a notice on December 11 regarding unnatural fluctuations in the prices of certain trading pairs. The market operator has launched a probe to identify the suspect accounts behind the problem.
After noticing unusual price fluctuations for certain trading pairs involving Sun Token (SUN), Ardor (ARDR), Osmosis (OSMO), FUNToken (FUN), and Golem (GLM) tokens, crypto exchange Binance launched an investigation into suspicious activity on its platform. Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao stated that the price fluctuations “appear to be just market behaviour” after nearly 40 minutes of research.
Binance published a notice on December 11 at 3:10 am Eastern Time regarding abnormal price movements for some trading pairs. As a result, the market started looking into potentially malicious accounts. There was no evidence of stolen API keys or compromised accounts, which is good news for Binance’s investors.
CZ said this: “One guy deposited funds and started buying. (Hackers don’t deposit). Other guys followed. Can’t see linkage between the accounts.”
The platform, however, has taken preventative action to guard against any manipulation. According to CZ, complaints about the temporary withdrawal block spread rapidly across social media from users who had made money on their accounts during the volatility.
CZ continued to address centralisation and company intervention concerns by saying, “There is a balance to how much we should intervene” in similar situations.
When CZ was asked about the possibility of using stolen or compromised accounts for the purpose of carrying out manipulative trades, he responded by clarifying that Binance actively monitors such accounts and adding that: “If you leave your account details with a third party platform that gets hacked, and the hacker is cautious in using it, it can be hard to detect on our side. But we try.”
Binance has promised to update investors once new information is discovered regarding the recent price fluctuations.
During the Indonesia Fintech Summit 2022, CZ stated that the cryptocurrency industry was set back several years due to the malicious actions of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
CZ emphasised how devastating the incident was for the industry by saying, “I think we’ve been set back a few years now. Regulators rightfully will scrutinise this industry much, much harder, which is probably a good thing, to be honest.”