Binance halted BTC withdrawals on network congestion
Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volumes, temporarily disabled bitcoin withdrawals for a time on Monday due to “a stuck transaction causing a backlog.”
Withdrawals were resumed about three hours after Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao announced the stoppage to customers on his Twitter account at 8 a.m. ET. He initially said the problem would be fixed in around 30 minutes, but later added that it takes longer than he expected as the backlog is cleared.
Temporary pause of $BTC withdrawals on #Binance due to a stuck transaction causing a backlog. Should be fixed in ~30 minutes. Will update.
Funds are SAFU.
— CZ ? Binance (@cz_binance) June 13, 2022
At 11:32 a.m., Binance tweeted that withdrawals had resumed once again. The firm also apologized for the inconvenience to its global user and shared that all updates will be informed through the thread.
#Bitcoin network withdrawals have now resumed on #Binance.https://t.co/FhxXi3LeBg
— Binance (@binance) June 13, 2022
While Binance had announced a halt on withdrawal service, users panicked as they were assuming a cyberattack on the platform. But later, Binance CEO assured everyone through his tweet. “Funds are SAFU,” he noted, referring to the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU), an emergency insurance fund established in 2018 to protect users’ funds. Binance commits a percentage of trading fees in order to grow the fund’s resources.
At present, many crypto platforms have experienced difficulties, resulting in clients getting kept out of the market during sensitive times. The news arrives amid high market volatility as Bitcoin prices experience a drastic decline and the broader cryptocurrency markets plummeted in the last few days.
“Crypto markets are in extreme fear mode with the only recent comparable period of extended low sentiment stretching back to March 2020. Certainly the failure of the Terraform Labs UST stablecoin and the subsequent collapse of the linked Terra LUNA coin sent shockwaves through the entire ecosystem. Not least from the 80,000 BTC (~$2.3bn) that Terra backers the Luna Foundation Guard were forced to sell at a considerable loss. Bitcoin has remained relatively resilient to such shocks, despite markets leaning bearish for the last six months. But dropping through a key level at $28,000 means the next major support is at $20,000,” said Bradley Duke, Co-CEO at crypto ETP-provider ETC Group.
