On Monday, Binance paused Bitcoin withdrawals for the second time in under 12 hours. Read to know more about the halts.
Binance pauses Bitcoin withdrawals twice in under 12h
The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance paused all Bitcoin withdrawals on its platform. The firm is citing blockchain congestion due to the high flow of transactions pending as the reason behind the pause. “Our team is currently working on a fix and will reopen (Bitcoin) withdrawals as soon as possible,” tweeted Binance. “There is a large volume of withdrawal transactions from Binance still pending as our set fees did not anticipate the recent surge in (bitcoin) network gas fees,” it explained.
Following two halts, the exchange was able to steady the operations and resumed the withdrawals of Bitcoin with a small change. “To prevent a similar recurrence in the future, our fees have been adjusted. We will continue to monitor on-chain activity and adjust accordingly if needed,” it explained.
More on the halts
As per CryptQuant data, the congestion was the result of the highest-ever net daily withdrawal of Bitcoin on the platform. On May 7, a total of 175,646 tokens were asked to be taken out. However, this is not the first time such an instance has occurred. In March 2023, following Bitcoin’s plunge to $28,191, Binance faced a similar situation. It suspended both deposits and withdrawals due to tech issues.
Additionally, between December 12 and 13, the platform recorded $1.9 billion in Bitcoin withdrawals. “We’re in a new industry, we’ve seen in the past week, things go crazy in the industry. We do need some regulations, we do need to do this properly, and we do need to do this stably,” stated Changpeng Zhao at the time. Zhao is the Chief Executive Officer of the platform. “I think the industry collectively has a role to protect consumers, to protect everybody. So it’s not just regulators. Regulators have a role but it’s not 100 percent their responsibility,” he added.