Two pauses that have left the community wondering. The Binance exchange platform has had to suspend Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals twice in the space of a few hours. What caused the cryptocurrency giant to make these decisions?
Binance temporarily suspends Bitcoin withdrawals
The first pause occurred late yesterday, and the second early this morning: less than eight hours have passed between the two. A few hours ago, Binance announced the suspension of withdrawals, explaining it was due to heavy congestion on the Bitcoin network:
We’ve temporarily closed BTC withdrawals due to the large volume of pending transactions.
Our team is currently working on a fix and will reopen $BTC withdrawals as soon as possible.
Rest assured, funds are SAFU.
– Binance (@binance) May 8, 2023
According to Binance, transaction fees had not been sufficiently anticipated:
“There is a large volume of withdrawal transactions from Binance that are still pending, as our fixed fees did not anticipate the recent increase in Bitcoin network fees. “
At around 6am this morning, Binance confirmed that withdrawals were available again. Ongoing transactions have been processed with an increase in related fees. The platform also confirmed that fixed fees have been adjusted to ensure the situation does not recur. Withdrawals using the Lightning Network (LN) will also be integrated into the exchange’s services.
The breakthrough of new “memecoins” in question
This congestion has been largely attributed to the breakthrough of “BRC-20” tokens on Binance. Thought to be the equivalent of Ethereum’s ERC-20 standard, but for the Bitcoin blockchain, they are attracting a huge amount of interest at the moment, to the point of causing transaction fees to soar. The ‘Pepe’, which is already generating a craze rarely seen on Ethereum, has in fact been launched as a BRC-20.
Ranking of the most capitalised BRC-20s
The result has been a surge in transaction fees on the Bitcoin network, which has sent giant Binance reeling. The price of BTC has continued to fall in recent days, posting a 3.8% drop for the week. But fees have soared to levels not seen for over two years:
Year-to-date average Bitcoin network fees
The breakthrough of this new standard, which represents a small revolution for the Bitcoin network, is therefore one to watch… Just like Pepe. Lauded by investors who see it as a new Dogecoin (DOGE), memecoin is based on virtually nothing… But that hasn’t stopped its price from soaring. As usual, in the world of cryptos, it’s the hype that counts.
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