Binance began phased withdrawals reopenings on Nov 1, starting with BTC and ETH, as traders watch how quickly arbitrageurs close the price gap to determine if the anomaly was technical.

The Coinbase Premium Index, which compares Bitcoin prices on Coinbase to Binance, dipped to a yearly low negative around -0.06%, signaling a large U.S. sell-off under normal conditions.

Withdrawal priority is being given to assets based on user demand from the past week, while deposits remain available.

Binance disclosed a hot-wallet hack on Oct 29–30, with about $6.3 billion stolen; on-chain, roughly half of the funds were frozen, and remaining losses will be covered from SAFU and company funds as investigations proceed.

Withdrawals were halted after unauthorized hot-wallet transfers on October 29, with losses estimated at $6.3 billion, and Binance pledged to cover losses using SAFU and company funds during security checks.

The withdrawal ban dampened arbitrage, as preventing buying cheaper Bitcoin on Coinbase to move to Binance kept liquidity locked and widened the Coinbase discount.

If the negative spread persists beyond a few days, it could indicate a lasting cooling of American capital from Bitcoin rather than a fleeting technical issue.

Galaxy Research’s Alex Thorn said the withdrawal block turned the Coinbase discount into a technical anomaly rather than a signal of weak U.S. demand for Bitcoin.

The second withdrawal phase includes assets across networks such as Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Solana, XRP Ledger, Sui, Arbitrum, Optimism, Tron and Base.

Investors will watch whether the USDT-adjusted Coinbase-Binance discount tightens as withdrawal traffic normalizes.

The spike in the market was later revealed as a technical illusion caused by Binance’s emergency halt on withdrawals, which blocked classic cross-exchange arbitrage.

As withdrawals resume, arbitrage could reemerge with traders moving BTC between Coinbase and Binance, potentially narrowing the spread, though recovery may be slowed by delays, fees, thin liquidity, and lingering network limits.