I purchased my first STEEMs on June 23rd on the Binance exchange and did not realize until recently that their STEEM wallet has suspended deposits and withdrawals. This mean I cannot transfer my STEEM to Steemit or another wallet. It is frozen on the Binance exchange. Of course I am welcomed to buy as much STEEM as I can afford, but I cannot move it (example1). Does that make sense to anyone? The goal of my post find out why Binance has suspended STEEM transfers.
Example1
I was not happy when I found out and emailed Binance customer support. They replied with a vague response and asked me to be patient while the wallet was undergoing maintenance (example2). They did not give a time frame on when the maintenance will be complete either. I was very annoyed at why they did not include a caveat that I would not be able to transfer the STEEMS off the exchange when I made my purchase. There should have been some kind of warning at least.
Example2
As a result, I gave them a poor customer service rating when I was asked to rate my experience with their support team.
I have since learned that frozen STEEM wallet on Binance is a common occurrence. I have also learned that Bittrex allows their STEEM to roam freely as well as Poloniex, although I have read some poor customer service reviews about Poloniex.
DO YOU KNOW WHY CRYPTO EXCHANGES FREEZE CERTAIN COINS SUCH AS STEEM?
If so, please enlighten me. Does it have to do with protecting the STEEM market from collapse? Is it because they have a shortage of STEEM on Binance? I am dying to know what is the reasoning.
If you do not have an answer, I urge you to submit a ticket to Binance requesting an answer if you own STEEM on their exchange. If enough of us ask the same question, perhaps it could speed up the “maintenance” and free our STEEMs. If you receive a vague answer like mine, then please give them a poor customer service rating. Our voices combined will matter…I hope, keke.
Binance has a couple Steemit wallets. They have @deepcrypto8 mostly for deposits and @binance-hot mostly for withdrawals.
The exchanges have to run a STEEM node like a witness to control deposits and withdrawals. Once STEEM is transferred to Binance exchange, it is really not in the exchange user's wallet. The actual STEEM resides on the @deepcrypto8 wallet or the @binance-hot wallet. The exchange user has a virtual amount of STEEM and not actual STEEM.
About 16 days ago, the Binance STEEM node went down when STEEM blockchain froze and the Binance node has never gotten fixed. We don't know why. I've been asking the witnesses almost daily and they know absolutely nothing. When the node goes down, Binance no longer has control of the deposits and withdrawals because the node is handling those transactions.
Ultimately it is up to Binance to fix their node, but I believe that Steemit Inc should offer assistance to get the node functional. I've been trying to get Steemit Inc to do something, but they will not provide any information. While other currency developers are proactive at getting their coin on exchanges and keeping them there, I feel that Steemit Inc does absolutely nothing.
By the Way, Binance has been pretty solid until they went down a couple weeks ago. It was Poloniex that would go down regularly. The last time they went down, it took almost 6 months to get their node back in operation. HitBTC node went down about the same time as Poloniex and to this day has not been fixed.
Thanks for stopping by and setting the story straight. I love the detail that you provided. I now have a better understanding of the pricing nodes.
I agree with you that Steemit Inc should offer assistance to Binance or any exchange if they have not done so already. It looks bad and deters investors when there are issues with the liquidity of the coin.
Sounds like you pay close attention to the exchanges and STEEM. Are you an investor? Curious have you heard of or used 3commas.io? I have been thinking about tying out the tool to perform passive investments.
FYI - Binance has lifted the STEEM withdrawal suspension.
My guess is that Binance experienced a technical issue that prompted them to disabled Steem withdrawals.
I don't have personal experience with Binance here but I read in a post by @kirkins that Binance disabled deposits and withdrawals after the blockchain stall at block 23,847,548. From my understanding, there was a bug in the Steem protocol implementation that allowed an invalid transaction to be included. A week later, the invalid transaction triggered a network halt as it resulted in an invalid operation.
16 days does seem excessive for Binance to respond to this issue, which was patched shortly after it occurred. I am not sure whether Binance runs the type of node which would need to update its version to move past the halt... anyone know?
Thanks for stopping by and answering my call. Now I know the root cause, but what remains a mystery is why it is taking so long to get the node back up and running.
The response from another member below, socky, goes into even more detail.
FYI - Binance has lifted the STEEM withdrawal suspension.
may because of the difference in price. to prevent arbitration
I actually checked on this earlier, and there is no longer a profitable price difference between Poloniex, Bittrex, or Binance to arbitrage. Coincidentally, deposit functionality for STEEM is now available on Binance, but withdrawals are still suspended.