Frozen In: The Price of Exit After Binance Halted Withdrawals

An exit can fail in two different ways: the venue can stop withdrawals, or a trade can execute at a punishing price. Binance’s incident put both mechanisms on the record, but they affected different holders. In its October 30 update , Binance said withdrawals were temporarily suspended while security checks were completed, while deposits continued normally. Separately, TRM Labs reconstructed an attacker selling USDT for ether at terms well below the token’s nominal dollar value. The first is an access problem; the second is a conversion cost.