A burst of social media posts urging users to pull funds from Binance briefly rattled crypto markets this week, reviving familiar anxieties about exchange risk.
The episode followed a short withdrawal pause that lasted about 20 minutes and quickly became a flashpoint on X. Yet behind the noise, Binance said activity on its on-chain addresses told a different story.
Assets increased during the period, suggesting deposits outweighed withdrawals even as calls to exit the platform spread online.
Withdrawal push meets on-chain data
Binance co-founder He Yi described the surge of withdrawal messages as a coordinated push from parts of the community.
In a post on X, she said she did not fully understand why deposits appeared to exceed withdrawals once the campaign began.
She framed large, routine withdrawal waves across platforms as useful stress tests that reveal how systems behave under pressure.
Her message also included a practical warning. Blockchain transfers are final once confirmed, and rushing funds during periods of heightened emotion can lead to costly mistakes.
She encouraged users to slow down when moving assets and pointed them toward self-custody options, including Binance Wallet, Trust Wallet, and hardware wallets for those seeking additional reassurance.
Some friends in the community have initiated a withdrawal campaign. Although the number of assets in Binance addresses has increased after the campaign was launched, I believe that regularly initiating withdrawals from all trading platforms is a very effective stress test.
I
Brief outage fuels solvency chatter
The comments followed a temporary pause in withdrawals on Tuesday that reignited nerves in a market still shaped by past exchange collapses.
Binance acknowledged technical difficulties affecting withdrawals and said its team was working on a fix.
Follow-up updates indicated services resumed in roughly 20 minutes.
We are aware of some technical difficulties affecting withdrawals on the platform. Our team is already working on a fix, and services will resume as soon as possible.
We appreciate your patience and will keep you posted!
Despite the short duration, the interruption quickly became a talking point on X.
Some users drew comparisons with earlier failures, such as FTX, and framed the withdrawal campaign as a real-time test of Binance’s infrastructure.
The speed at which the conversation spread underscored how sensitive traders remain to operational hiccups, especially during periods of thinner liquidity.
He Yi pushed back against the solvency narrative by highlighting net inflows during the campaign window.
Her response aimed to separate a brief technical issue from broader questions about balance sheet health.
Zhao rejects bitcoin dump claims
The debate widened earlier in the week as crypto prices slid. On Monday, Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao addressed claims circulating online that the exchange had sold $1B of Bitcoin to trigger a weekend sell-off.
He dismissed the allegations as imaginative FUD and said the funds in question belonged to users trading on the platform, not to Binance itself.
Zhao also rejected suggestions that his public comments could steer the broader market cycle.
The episode reopened a familiar divide between those who keep assets on exchanges for speed and those who see periodic withdrawals as the only credible check.
Reserves and transparency take focus
Binance has leaned on transparent data to counter recurring concerns.
According to CoinMarketCap’s January 2026 exchange reserves ranking, Binance topped the list with about $155.64B in total reserves, reinforcing its position as the largest liquidity hub in the sector.
📊 New data drop: Proof of Reserve analysis across top exchanges reveals massive scale differences, distinct asset strategies, and where liquidity really sits.
Binance’s dominance is striking, but the compositional differences tell an even more interesting story 👇
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