In a coordinated display of standard operational procedure, two major cryptocurrency exchanges have announced temporary suspensions of deposit and withdrawal services for specific tokens to facilitate significant network upgrades. South Korea's Bithumb has suspended services for the Frax Share (FXS) token effective 10:00 a.m. UTC on April 9, 2025, to support its official rebranding and token swap. Separately, global giant Binance will halt Zilliqa (ZIL) deposits and withdrawals starting at 9:00 a.m. UTC on February 5, 2026, to accommodate a crucial network upgrade and hard fork.
Bithumb's action is a direct response to the Frax Finance ecosystem's planned rebranding initiative for its governance token, FXS. The exchange has paused external movements to ensure a secure transition as users' old tokens are swapped for new ones. Bithumb stated that trading of FXS spot pairs on its internal order book would continue uninterrupted, and user balances would be automatically updated. The suspension is framed as a security-first measure to prevent transaction errors or loss of funds during the contract migration, a practice common among major exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken during similar events.
Concurrently, Binance's suspension is designed to support a major technical upgrade on the Zilliqa blockchain, which includes a hard fork. The upgrade aims to enhance the network's scalability, security, and functionality. While deposits and withdrawals are paused, trading of ZIL pairs on Binance will continue normally. The exchange has not specified an exact end time for the suspension but notes it typically lasts from several hours to two days, depending on the complexity of the upgrade and subsequent security verification by the exchange's team.
Industry analysts emphasize that such planned, well-communicated suspensions are a sign of operational maturity and a critical security protocol. They prevent users from accidentally sending tokens to deprecated addresses and allow exchanges to update their internal systems in coordination with project developers. These events occur within an evolving regulatory landscape, particularly in South Korea, where exchanges like Bithumb now follow stricter guidelines from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) for user protection and transparency.
