Any idea why some exchanges keep coins in perpetual maintenance mode?

[The Sceptical Chymist]

This is a pet peeve of mine and I'm really curious as to why they do it.

One coin that I've been interested in for a while is RDD--I like PoS coins in general, and I like the way rewards are earned with RDD (even though I'm well aware that it's a complete shitcoin and isn't destined for over 7 sats).  However, there are very few exchanges that even list RDD and two of them--Yobit and Upbit--seem to always have the RDD wallet in maintenance mode.  And as an aside, the other exchanges that have it listed all require KYC, so my only viable option to buy it is Changeangel.

Yobit in particular has a great many coins listed, but you can't withdraw them because of perpetual maintenance mode.  The only thing you can do is to trade them on the exchange, and while that might be fine for some people, for a coin like RDD which has Yobit listed on their website as a place to buy it, it's very misleading.

So my question is why do exchanges do this?  Is it because of lack of customer deposits and not having enough coins on hand?  Why wouldn't they just delist a coin if trading volume is extremely low?

Any theories would be appreciated, and I'll be happy to give out some merits to good replies.

[joniboini]

Some possibilities:
1. They use the coin to inflate the volume or make money by themselves (artificially pumping and then dumping all their bags on naive traders).
2. The network of the coin/token is in a bad shape and nobody knows when it's going to be better.
3. No staff in house to manage the maintenance of the wallet but the coins are still popular.
4. They're preparing for an exit scam and want some extra money by letting people trade the coins.

[exstasie]

Yobit in particular has a great many coins listed, but you can't withdraw them because of perpetual maintenance mode.  The only thing you can do is to trade them on the exchange, and while that might be fine for some people, for a coin like RDD which has Yobit listed on their website as a place to buy it, it's very misleading.

So my question is why do exchanges do this?  Is it because of lack of customer deposits and not having enough coins on hand?  Why wouldn't they just delist a coin if trading volume is extremely low?

In the case of POS coins, traders always speculate about exchanges staking deposits for themselves.

If the wallet literally never comes out of maintenance, I would assume something closer to insolvency through hacks or 51% attacks. Many shifty altcoin exchanges will just shut down wallets instead of compensating users or coming clean. I'm thinking of cases like Livecoin with MONA and XMR: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5159692.0

[pooya87]

because they are trying to save their server resources!
an exchange like Yobit for example, that has thousands of shitcoins listed can not run every single coin's node unless they want to spend millions on servers alone and they don't earn nearly enough to be able to justify that. so they calculate which coins' nodes are not worth running based on how many deposits they get and how many people trade those coins. the small coins that don't make the cut are going to be disabled.

[gentlemand]

To be able to trade a lot of the Bitcoin shitforks you had to have BTC on the exchanges before the 'fork' and after that they never, ever gave you the option to deposit or withdraw. I'll bet quite a few were never anything other than database entries.

It's a nice little business model. You attract Bitcoin that otherwise wouldn't have been deposited. You create fees out of thin air and it allows more front running and more lucrative selective scams.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

because they are trying to save their server resources!

Please don't laugh at this question, but do exchanges necessarily have to run full nodes for each coin?  I know there are wallets for a lot of coins which aren't full nodes, and even if exchanges did have to, wouldn't they just delist a coin instead of stringing their customers along by keeping the wallet in a maintenance mode that it never comes out of?  I could see shutting down the node for a period of time and then restarting it, but to have a wallet permanently disabled just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not sure Yobit is keeping RDD stakes for themselves when customers trade it, and I just checked and deposits are disabled.  I have a feeling they're running a bucket shop for coins like that.  You can buy and sell them, but there aren't actually coins being moved around.  I bet you Yobit doesn't even have any RDD on hand.

[suchmoon]

because they are trying to save their server resources!

Please don't laugh at this question, but do exchanges necessarily have to run full nodes for each coin?

I think if they don't run their own nodes they would have to trust some other entity to supply them with the blockchain data in order to validate deposits. Which is either very risky, or expensive, or both. They would also need to be able to sign and broadcast transactions but that part is usually easier.

[Harlot]

The answer will vary by exchange to exchanges since they will always jave different answers for you. There are a lot of possibilities here from the crypto on the verge of delisting to them not having enough demand for the crypto. One way to know the reason why RDD remains in maintenance mode is directly asking their customer support, but before you do that I think reading in some announcements and posts from them will give you some answers you are looking for or ask someone you know is trading in that exchange if they have seen any announcement for RDD.

[coupable]

I always thought it's because the lack of updates from the token project so exchanges change it to maintenance mode which means to stop deposit/withdraw of that token until reaching updates from token team. This looks reasonable.
But after using exchanges for years, i noticed that this may not only happen to coins having their own blockchains or to those lacking updates but also to some developped in top of some major blockchains like ERC20 tokens or counterparty tokens, and that the coin can still be trade active while the user wallet shows the maintenance mode. This assure the possibility of exchanges trying to make extra money from dead coins or possible scam tokens (worthless).

Some possibilities:
2. The network of the coin/token is in a bad shape and nobody knows when it's going to be better.

This is the only innocent reason, so those tokens who no nobody knows when their network will get better will be frequently marked in maintenance mode so they are worthless for hold/use.

[pooya87]

because they are trying to save their server resources!

Please don't laugh at this question, but do exchanges necessarily have to run full nodes for each coin?  I know there are wallets for a lot of coins which aren't full nodes, and even if exchanges did have to, wouldn't they just delist a coin instead of stringing their customers along by keeping the wallet in a maintenance mode that it never comes out of?  I could see shutting down the node for a period of time and then restarting it, but to have a wallet permanently disabled just doesn't make sense to me.

I'm not sure Yobit is keeping RDD stakes for themselves when customers trade it, and I just checked and deposits are disabled.  I have a feeling they're running a bucket shop for coins like that.  You can buy and sell them, but there aren't actually coins being moved around.  I bet you Yobit doesn't even have any RDD on hand.

to add to what @suchmoon said, it depends on the exchange itself too. for example Yobit doesn't make money from people making deposits and then trade. they make money by fake pumping different coins and that doesn't need any deposits/withdrawals. in fact disabling the wallet helps them ensure the pump (nobody can arbitrage and pull their pump down).
obviously i don't know what exchanges do since i don't work at any, so i am only speculating based on my observations.

[hugeblack]

It varies from platform to anthor, and I can mention many reasons:

Popular platforms with real volum sizes: Mostly it is due to the developer team, regulatory restrictions (especially currencies based on privacy) and the lack of enough trading.

Shady & scam exchanges: most of the currencies are for pumping and dumping, price manipulation, scam, and saving some money.

[buwaytress]

Great responses already and I'm not sure I can contribute much here but I have used Yobit in the past and they had plenty of wallets in maintenance mode when the actual coin itself doesn't seem to be in trouble -- so I always suspected that yeah, they had cashflow problems with those.

But beyond speculation, my favourite altcoin forever in maintenance was Gridcoin (great project, no matter how you view it)... and it was on maintenance forever on Bittrex until they finally decided to delist it. Bittrex to my memory never gave a reason but it was well known the project had huge problems or a network issue, the project never managed to fix things and a lot of supporters gave up. I also never found a way to use my client properly, the blockchain would never finish compiling so I now have a bag of GRC on a dumb multi-asset wallet.

pooya's probably right about Yobit though, simple a matter of saving resources maintaining 1000s of shitcoins.

[examplens]

yes, everything has already been said.
As I know, wallet maintenance mode is inherent to Yobit. I guess there is more than 70% of all wallet in maintenance, maybe more. For example LISK, 40th on CMC with daily volume $6+mill. But they are in maintenance for a long time. So its not a shit coin, LISK have a regular update and huge user base everything works quite well, I'm sure Yobit intentionally keep the in this mode where they can manipulate. otherwise, prices of such coins are higher than on other exchanges.

I remember I follow one trash coin XDE2, which is listed on Yobit and Coinexchange, Yobit of course in maintenance but this coin there have price 4x higher than on CE. Something like 0.0004 vs 0.0001. I handle his website and manage the Twitter account for that coin and I remember many complain, where are my coins, people are losing money trying to use exchange arbitrage.
Of course, once when you buy coins there, you can't do anything except to sell it on the same exchange, and as I know you can never get a good price if you are forced to sell to one buyer.
Also, I think they do not use the wallets for all of these coins, I think it is just manipulation by software like to all of his own created crap tokens.