Bitcoin is making its way out of Binance after the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued the exchange earlier this week, on-chain data shows. 

Though bearish for the world’s largest crypto exchange, the wave of outflows doesn’t appear to have triggered any significant migration from the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem. 

Binance Outflows Surge

According to data provided by IntoTheBlock, Binance has experienced a 60% surge in BTC withdrawals over the past 30 days, with some days in march seeing an average of over $400 million in net withdrawals.

“This signals a strong interest from investors in moving their BTC holdings off the exchange.” said Juan Pellicer, Senior Researcher at IntoTheBlock, to CryptoPotato via DM. 

Signs of an increase in withdrawal demand appeared on Monday when Nansen reported a roughly equivalent number of net outflows within the previous 24 hours. Meanwhile, data from Thanefield Capital showed total stablecoin withdrawals exceeding $1 million from Binance within the hours before and after its legal challenge from the CFTC was made public. 

The agency alleged that Binance had illegally serviced many U.S. customers without proper registration, encouraged them to bypass know-your-customer (KYC) requirements using virtual private networks (VPNs), and engaged in market manipulation. 

The firm’s CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) later