Just In: Binance Exchange Suspends Cardano (ADA) Deposits & Withdrawals To Support Upgrade

Binance exchange announces a temporary suspension of Cardano (ADA) deposits and withdrawal services on its platform, pending the upgrade of the blockchain. An announcement on the official Binance blog further confirms Binance’s support of the upcoming Cardano upgrade as the cause of the halt.

All deposits and withdrawal services on ADA will be suspended starting 2020/02/20 4:00 PM (UTC). The suspension will not affect trading on the platform during the upgrade, the post concluded.

The post further asks the ADA traders to “leave sufficient time for deposits of ADA to be processed in full prior to the above cut off time.” Users are not required to do anything, with Binance handling the technical requirements to upgrade the system.

#Binance Will Support the Upcoming Cardano $ADA Network Upgradehttps://t.co/6ow5NkTSPB pic.twitter.com/F5pX5ZqLOE

— Binance (@binance) February 20, 2020

The Cardano network is scheduled to undergo a network upgrade today, improving the consensus algorithm to Ouroboros BFT, in support of the launch of the main net Shelley upgrade. The intermediate upgrade will cause a chain split on Cardano that the development team say is “a planned and managed protocol upgrade.”

The chain split will not form any new coins and Binance is expected to reopen the withdrawals and deposits of ADA once the upgrade is tested and proves stable.

The price of ADA is reacting negatively following the announcement of the upgrade on Feb. 19. ADA trades at $0.057 USD, representing a 10% plummet from intraday highs on Wednesday.