Binance Resumes Services After AWS Outage Disrupts Withdrawals

Cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and KuCoin temporarily suspended withdrawals Tuesday (April 15) morning.

As CoinDesk reported, the issue stemmed from the companies’ data center provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS).

“We are aware of an issue impacting some services on the #Binance platform due to a temporary network interruption in the AWS data center,” Binance said in an X post.

According to the CoinDesk report, Binance resumed withdrawals just after the problem was reported, though customers on both exchanges still dealt with trading issues.

“We are seeing initial signs of recovery but continue to monitor and work toward full recovery. Other AWS services are also impacted by this issue, and are also observing recovery. We will provide another update within the next 30-60 minutes,” AWS said in an April 15 update, per a report on the incident by CoinTelegraph.

In other cryptocurrency news, PYMNTS wrote this week about the long-term vision of stablecoin proponents: to become “itself a layer of programmable financial infrastructure, where money is open, interoperable and embedded into software.”

But for that future to come to pass, the report added, crypto builders, regulators, and institutions need to work together and “solve the last mile by making spending stablecoins as natural and trusted as sending a message.”

Stablecoins, a16z’s crypto fund founder Chris Dixon wrote in a recent post, need to have their “WhatsApp moment,” with stablecoin transactions functioning properly on the back end while also invisibly useful to billions of front end users.

“After all, without being spendable in the real economy or interoperable with the systems people already use, stablecoins could risk stalling before reaching mass adoption,” PYMNTS wrote. “While the infrastructure may be being laid, the bridge to everyday stablecoin utility has yet to be fully built.”

Stablecoins, that report argues, need to experience the same kind of evolution as credit cards, which scaled because merchants had the incentive, tools and support to accept them.

“The next step is interoperability: making sure a merchant doesn’t need to care what chain a stablecoin lives on or whether it’s USDC, USDT, or another issuer,” PYMNTS wrote. “Just as merchants don’t need to understand ACH routing to accept a Visa card, they shouldn’t need to understand gas fees or smart contracts to accept digital dollars.”

Regulation is also key to ensuring industry confidence, Jonathan Levin said in an interview with PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster published earlier this month.

“Without a federal framework, it is incredibly difficult for financial services firms and international enterprises to really get comfortable in using stablecoins at scale,” Levin said.