Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, on Monday temporarily paused Bitcoin withdrawals on its platform.
Changpeng Zhao, the Founder and CEO of Binance, explained that: “a stuck transaction causing a backlog” necessitated the action.
Zhao in an earlier post on Twitter had said that the issue will be cleared in 30 minutes but later announced that the impasse would take a bit longer to fix.
However, the CEO noted that a halt on withdrawals only affects the Bitcoin network.
Zhao, who also pointed out that users can still withdraw BTC from other networks like BEP-20, noted that all users’ funds are in the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).
While the BEP-20 is a token standard deployed in creating tokens on the Binance Smart Chain, SAFU is an emergency insurance fund.
Binance established SAFU in July 2018 to protect users' funds.
The exchange's action follows a similar measure taken by Celsius, a crypto lending platform.
Celsius in a announcement on Monday said it was pausing all withdrawals, swaps and transfers between accounts. The firm said the decision was taken due to extreme volatility in the cryptocurrency market.
Crypto Crash
Bitcoin slumped 14% at the beginning of the week. The cryptocurrency fell below $24,000. This plunge is the lowest since December 2020.
According to estimates, more than $200 billion was lost in the cryptocurrency market during the crash.
TIME reports that the fall follows the release of the May 2022 Consumer Price Index by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics
Over the past day, other top cryptocurrencies have slumped between 15-25%. These include Ethereum (ETH), Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Dogecoin (DOGGE).
Meanwhile, last week Zhao disclosed that Binance was after two licenses in the Philippines. These are the virtual asset service provider (VASP) and the electronic money issuer (EMI) licenses.
Additionally, the US subsidiary of the exchange recently launched a new staking platform, Binance.US Staking. Binance.US explained that the new staking platform comes with an 'auto-restake' feature and enables users to stake a selection of tokens.
“Multiple supported Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrencies are available immediately on Binance.US Staking, including Audius (AUDIO), Avalanche (AVAX), BNB, Cosmos (ATOM), Livepeer (LPT), Solana (SOL) and The Graph (GRT), with more supported tokens being added to the platform in the near future,” Binance said in a statement.
