Binance to Drop USDC Trading Pairs, Plans to Auto-Convert Specific Stablecoin Balances to BUSD

The world’s largest cryptocurrency trading platform by trade volume, Binance, issued a notice on Monday explaining that the exchange will be removing the stablecoin USDC from the platform’s spot trading pairs list. Binance further details that users holding three types of stablecoins will see their balances auto-converted into BUSD if the user does not remove the specific crypto asset from the exchange.

Binance to Delist Specific Stablecoin Trading Pairs by the End of September

• It seems Binance will be removing the world’s second-largest stablecoin usd coin (USDC), a U.S. dollar-pegged token issued by the Centre consortium. During an announcement made on Monday, Binance explained that it plans to auto-convert certain stablecoin balances if the funds are not removed by September 29, 2022.
• “Fellow Binancians, in order to enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for users, Binance is introducing BUSD Auto-Conversion for users’ existing balances and new deposits of USDC, USDP and TUSD stablecoins at a 1:1 ratio,” the exchange said on September 5. Then the announcement further notes that Binance is sunsetting a few specific spot trading pairs.
• The pairs will be removed before the auto-conversion September 29 deadline and they will cease trading three days prior to the cut-off. “Binance will remove and cease trading on the following spot trading pairs at 2022-09-26 03:00 (UTC): USDC/BUSD, USDC/USDT, USDP/BUSD, USDP/USDT, TUSD/BUSD, TUSD/USDT,” Binance details.
• Three days after those pairs are removed, Binance will also discontinue ADA/USDC, ATOM/USDC, AUD/USDC, BCH/USDC, BNB/USDC, BTC/USDC, BTTC/USDC, EOS/USDC, ETH/USDC, LINK/USDC, LTC/USDC, SOL/USDC, TRX/USDC, WIN/USDC, XRP/USDC, ZEC/USDC, BNB/USDP, BTC/USDP, ETH/USDP, ADA/TUSD, BNB/TUSD, BTC/TUSD, ETH/TUSD, TRX/TUSD, and XRP/TUSD trading pairs on September 29.
• Some individuals on social media criticized the move while others applauded the decision. A great number of other individuals questioned why Binance made the decision. “Uhm… why is Binance de-platforming USDC?” one person asked on Monday. “Why wouldn’t the largest crypto exchange do this?” another individual asked.

• In addition to being the largest crypto exchange by trade volume, Binance is the issuer of the third largest stablecoin BUSD. The dollar-pegged crypto asset has a market valuation of around $19.44 billion. USDC’s market cap is $51.89 billion today, just below tether’s (USDT) market cap of around $67.59 billion.
• At the time of writing on September 5, 2022, at 4:15 p.m. (ET), the stablecoin BUSD has recorded $6,667,316,743 in 24-hour trades, while USDC has printed $5,789,291,326 in 24-hour trades. USDT’s trade volume towers over both BUSD and USDC combined with $31.16 billion in swaps today. If USDC no longer remains on the largest crypto trading platform by global trade volume, the crypto asset’s daily volume could see some changes.