Binance has announced the upcoming cessation of trading for several stablecoin spot trading pairs associated with Justin Sun-linked stablecoin TrueUSD (TUSD).

In a routine assessment aimed at maintaining market quality by considering factors such as liquidity and volume, Binance has decided to delist multiple trading pairs, including COMP/TUSD, EDU/TUSD, and PENDLE/TUSD. These changes are set to take effect on March 15, 2024, at 03:00 UTC, impacting not only the mentioned pairs but also others like ARPA/BNB and EDU/BNB. Despite the delisting, Binance assures users that the base and quote assets of these pairs will remain accessible through other trading options on the platform. Additionally, Spot Trading Bots services for these pairs will also be discontinued concurrently with the trading halt.

This decision comes after TUSD's deviation from its peg to the US dollar earlier this year. On Jan. 15, 2024, an imbalance in TUSD trading on Binance was observed, with sell orders surpassing buy orders by over $142 million, leading to TUSD's value dropping to as low as $0.984. Within a 24-hour trading window, TUSD sell orders amounted to more than $339.2 million against $296.8 million in buy orders, resulting in a net outflow of $42.3 million.

Further scrutiny into TrueUSD's operations emerged on Jan. 10, with reported issues concerning the real-time attestation of its reserves. This prompted speculation about the stablecoin's backing, as API failures impaired the provision of a US dollar valuation for its collateral assets.

The TrueUSD team attributed the de-pegging event to specific activities on Binance Launchpool, indicating that recent mining activities created short-term arbitrage opportunities. They assured users that redemption mechanisms involving collaborations with global banks were fully operational, facilitating uninterrupted transactions. However, a Kaiko research report revealed that TUSD was no longer utilized for mining activities on Binance Launchpool, marking a significant shift in the stablecoin's engagement with the platform and contributing to its devaluation.