The U.S. subsidiary of cryptocurrency exchange OKX has not approached defunct U.S. tech bank Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), according to a March 13 tweet from Okcoin CEO Hong Fang. However, Fong said Okcoin’s U.S. dollar wire transfers and ACH deposits have been “immediately suspended” due to regulatory intervention with Signature Bank, the primary partner for Okcoin customers’ U.S. dollar transactions.
On March 12, New York state regulators shut down Signature Bank, a major fiat-to-crypto on-ramp financial institution, citing “anomalies of systemic risk” following the collapse of SVB. In addition to the suspension of U.S. dollar deposits, Fang wrote, “off-exchange trading services will also be temporarily suspended,” including its quick buy and regular buy functions. Okcoin also stated that the suspension applies to “credit card cryptocurrency transactions” and “trading USD-cryptocurrency trading pairs.”
In response to user inquiries, Fang clarified that “funds of all companies and all customers are safe,” and that “USD withdrawals will not be affected. Processing speed will depend on bank operations.” All crypto deposit and withdrawal functions remain unchanged, Including stablecoins pegged to the U.S. dollar. Furthermore, the suspension appears to be limited to USD deposits, as other fiat deposit methods (e.g. EUR deposit methods) are not affected.
"Our teams are working really hard on developing alternative channels and solutions in real-time. We've had worse times since our inception. If this weekend has taught us anything, it's the importance of the future we're building. We're grateful to you Commitments have not changed."
Cryptocurrency-friendly Signature Bank is a key partner to many cryptocurrency firms, including Coinbase, Celsius and Paxos, which later disclosed they held balances with the bank. Signature Bank depositors will receive their full balances after the closure, U.S. federal regulators said.
