Major cryptocurrency exchange breaks down, Bitcoin rallies

The Binance system is expected to be back online in the coming hours.
bitcoin
The Bitcoin price was up US$1,000 on Thursday
Hong Kong based cryptocurrency exchange Binance added to the digital currency woes, with an outage sparking panic that there’d been a hack.
Binance denied it had been hacked, but, said that users were unable to trade or withdraw funds because of a system upgrade that had to be extended due to a “significant increase”
Zhao Changpeng, Binance chief executive, gave a more specific diagnose via Twitter.
The system is expected to be back online in the coming hours.
Binance is said to be one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, so a 12 hour shutdown being triggered by an unannounced software upgrade probably won’t help the growing cynicism over digital currency systems and regulation.
The Binance halt coincided with a rally in the Bitcoin price, which gained more than US$1,000 or 13.6% to trade at US$8,612.

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