Coinbase CEO Armstrong: We Delisted BUSD Due to Liquidity Concerns

The exchange previously said it made the move because BUSD didn’t meet its listing standards, without going into any detail.

AccessTimeIconMar 1, 2023 at 5:00 p.m. UTC
Updated May 9, 2023 at 4:09 a.m. UTC
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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said the exchange decided to suspend trading of Binance USD (BUSD) because the company had concerns about its liquidity.

The crypto exchange had previously said the reason for delisting BUSD was that based on its own internal monitoring and review processes the stablecoin no longer met its listing standards. Coinbase didn’t supply any additional details.

On Wednesday morning, Armstrong appeared on Bloomberg TV and gave a more detailed explanation for the move.

“The reason we did that was that Paxos, the issuer of BUSD, had been ordered to stop minting it, so we were concerned about liquidity issues for our customers,” Armstrong said.

The New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) recently ordered Paxos to stop minting the Binance-branded BUSD due to unresolved issues related to Paxos’ oversight of its relationship with Binance. The Securities and Exchange Commission was also reportedly planning to sue Paxos for selling BUSD as an unregistered security.

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Helene Braun

Helene is a New York-based reporter covering Wall Street, the rise of the spot bitcoin ETFs and crypto exchanges. She is also the co-host of CoinDesk's Markets Daily show. Helene is a graduate of New York University's business and economic reporting program and has appeared on CBS News, YahooFinance and Nasdaq TradeTalks. She holds BTC and ETH.


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