The exchange announced the suspension on Saturday, adding that withdrawals through wire transfers, including SWIFT, will be halted from March 10.

Crypto exchange Bybit on Saturday announced a suspension of U.S. dollar (USD) deposits for national and international customers.

“We have temporarily suspended USD deposits via Wire Transfer (including SWIFT) due to service outages from our end-point processing partner until further notice,” the exchange said, adding that withdrawals will be stopped from March 10.

Users, however, can continue to deposit and withdraw crypto to and from wallet addresses and fund purchases through credit cards and other payment methods.

“The payment gateway interruption is limited in scope and does not involve other fiat or crypto currencies and/or account funding channels. Users can still buy crypto currencies in USD using their debit and credit cards through other channels. We are closely urging our partners for alternative solutions, and will keep our users and stakeholders posted as soon as there are further developments,” Bybit’s spokesperson told CoinDesk.

Bybit’s move comes a month after Binance, the world’s largest digital assets exchange by trading volume, halted dollar transfers and amid a crisis at Silverage, a California-based lender famous for offering traditional banking services to crypto firms, including exchanges. Last week, Silvergate said it’s evaluating “its ability to continue as a going concern” and delayed filing its annual report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to Markus Thielen, head of research and strategy at crypto services provider Matrixport, Bybit’s decision to follow Binance’s lead amid the Silvergate crisis is a big deal for the crypto market.

“When Binance halted USD transfers in January, bitcoin prices dropped -10%. Obviously, Binance has a much bigger impact than other exchanges but also now ByBit will halt USD transfers from March 10 onwards. This action is now preventing SWIFT (international) and Wire transfers (national) to reach some crypto exchanges and is indeed a BIG deal,” Thielen said in a note to clients.

“Three data points certainly make a trend that there is a deliberate attempt to cut off USD access for crypto exchanges and crypto firms,” Thielen added.

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The exchange is trying to “refocus” amid a “deepening bear market,” its CEO said on Twitter.

Crypto exchange Bybit will implement another round of job cuts as it tries to refocus its operations amid a “deepening bear market,” CEO Ben Zhou announced on Sunday in a Twitter post.

A screenshot of a message in which Zhou said the layoffs would affect 30% of staff, taken from the company’s internal messaging platform, was floating around Telegram group chats on the same day. A source with knowledge of the matter confirmed the screenshot to CoinDesk.

Bybit is among many firms, such as Coinbase and and now-bankrupt BlockFi, that have announced layoffs in the past few months, as a bear market is taking its toll on the industry. Bybit previously announced layoffs in June.

The exchange is trying to “refocus” in a “deepening bear market” and the “planned downsizing will be across the board,” Zhou tweeted. “We are all saddened by the fact this reorganisation will impact many of our dear Bybuddies and some of our oldest friends,” he added.

Dubai-based Bybit is a relatively new crypto exchange, founded in 2018, but has managed to accumulate a fair amount of trading, particularly with regard to derivatives. The exchange ranks ninth out of 64 derivates exchanges for open interest, meaning options or futures that have not been settled, and 15th in terms of normalized trade volume in the spot market, according to data for the last 24 hours from information platform CoinGecko.

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