Binance Has Suspended Multiple Cross-chain Bridge Tokens Associated with Multichain

Ali Raza
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Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, recently announced a suspension of a number of cryptocurrencies. Some of the affected tokens include Harvest Finance (FARM), Polkastarter (POLS), Alchemy Pay (ACH), and others. All the suspended tokens — which will no longer be available as of July 7th — are associated with Multichain project.

Binance will disable deposits and withdrawals for the cryptos in question by suspending the tokens with ties to Multichain. Most, if not all, of the affected cryptos, are cross-chain bridge tokens. According to Binance, the suspension will remain in place until further notice.

The exchange did not provide anything specific regarding the length of the suspension or even the reasons behind it. It simply suspended an array of cryptocurrencies deployed on the BNB Smart Chain. The mentioned cryptos were minted through the bridge of Fantom, including Beefy.Finance (BIFI) and Alpaca Finance (ALPACA) also found themselves on the list. Apart from these two, Travala (AVA) was also included.

Multichain’s May incident

As mentioned, the exchange did not specify the reason why the assets associated with the Multichain Bridge were suspended. It simply noted that the move is a follow-up to its past action against the project, which took place in May.

On May 24th, Binance suspended support for deposits of certain cryptocurrencies that were transferred using Multichain. Even back then, the exchange did not provide a clear explanation. Instead, it noted that there were complications with the protocol, which forced the exchange to react in the way it did.

It is worth mentioning that Binance stated that users would be able to continue to deposit and withdraw the impacted cryptos using other networks supported by the exchange. The suspension related to the Multichain project would not impact those. In other words, the assets can proceed to be traded without interruptions as long as they do not involve Multichain.

At this time, the Multichain Bridge oversees more than $1.3 billion in assets minted using its platform. The total amount includes $698 million minted on Ethereum, $339 million minted on Binance’s own BNB Smart Chain, and $92 million from Fantom.

What does Binance have against Multichain*

Binance’s issue with Multichain is believed to have started after the project experienced difficulties in processing bridge transfers. This led to multiple transactions getting stuck. Multichain’s cross-chain bridge has multiple pathways, and several of them stopped working, including Polygon zkEVM, Kava, and zkSync.

The team’s initial explanation was that the bridge suffered technical issues. However, after a while, they admitted that most bridge routes were functional, but a few were non-operational due to “force majeure.”

After trying to explain the situation with this broad term, the team eventually admitted that it could not contact the project’s CEO, who was supposedly detained by Chinese police, according to rumors. The issue was that the CEO, Zhaojun, had partial control over the Multichain upgrade functions.

Since then, the bridge routes have returned to normal, but Binance apparently lost its faith in the project.

About Ali Raza PRO INVESTOR

Ali is a professional journalist with experience in Web3 journalism and marketing. Ali holds a Master's degree in Finance and enjoys writing about cryptocurrencies and fintech. Ali’s work has been published on a number of leading cryptocurrency publications including Capital.com, CryptoSlate, Securities.io, Invezz.com, Business2Community, BeinCrypto, and more.