Bittrex, Binance, and Others Stop Accepting New Accounts, Can’t Accommodate Demand

Some major cryptocurrency exchanges are having to close their doors to new accounts–for now.

Within the past month, Bittrex, CEX.IO, Bitfinex, and Binance have all temporarily suspended new account creation in an attempt to improve infrastructure to meet demand.  Ironically, these suspensions come at a time when cryptocurrency interest is reaching a feverish peak with the global populace.

But they’re also a consequence of this interest, as exchanges have not matured quickly enough to accommodate demand. Throughout December 2017, this demand had user registration increasing by 100,000 users daily on the popular cryptocurrency purchasing website Coinbase.  It’s also the factor behind the cryptocurrency market’s nearly two-fold increase between December 22nd, 2017 and present day.

The first exchange to halt new user accounts, Bittrex, announced the decision in a December 15 blog post:

“Unfortunately, we have to make a few upgrades to our support and backend systems to handle the increased traffic and load.  As such, we have halted new user registrations for the time being.”

Following suit, CEX.IO decided to “[temporarily] pause the registrations of new users” beginning on December 21st, “until [it] can guarantee the decent response time to each and every ticket or a verification request.”  Bitfinex suspended their own newcomer accounts on the same day, and newcomers will be met with a popup alerting them of these developments if they attempt to sign up.

More recently, Binance has joined the pack.  In a January 4th blog post, Binance support announced that the exchange will “temporarily disable new user registrations to allow for an infrastructure upgrade.”  However, on January 8th, the Binance team released a statement that they will begin “accepting a limited number of new registrations…each day.”  They also warned users that they will freeze the funds of any accounts that have been bought/sold, a practice that began after January 4th as newcomers looked for solutions to circumvent Binance’s new account suspension.

Additionally, Bitfinex has also indicated that it will reopen new user registration on January 15th, while Bittrex and CEX.IO have not offered such timelines.