Cryptocurrency Exchange Binance Stops Bitcoin, Second withdrawal on May 8, citing a large backlog of pending withdrawals. Binance tweeted on May 8 that it had “temporarily” shut down BTC withdrawals due to “a large number of pending transactions.”
It added that transactions are still ongoing because its "fixed fees do not anticipate the recent spike in [Bitcoin] network gas fees." The exchange provided an update nearly two hours after its initial tweet, saying it was "replacing pending [Bitcoin] with rawal transactions with higher fees so they can be accepted by mining pools.”
Nearly three hours after the first tweet, Binance said bitcoin withdrawals had resumed, with pending transactions being processed with higher transaction fees.
It added that it was working to enable withdrawals via the Lightning Network, which it claimed could help mitigate such withdrawal suspensions in the future. Binance also had to temporarily suspend bitcoin withdrawals earlier on May 7, citing an overflow of transact ions on the blockchain. reopened for withdrawals after an hour and a half. At the time, the Bitcoin mempool had a backlog of approximately 400,000 transactions waiting to be processed. That number ballooned to nearly 485,000 the second time Binance halted withdrawals, according to m empool. space.
The mempool is the area on the Bitcoin network where transactions "wait" before being validated by each blockchain node.
According to data from CryptoQuant, Binance saw a large net negative outflow of bitcoin on May 7, with about 175,650 bitcoin worth about $4.95 billion outflowing from the exchange that day. Binance claims that this outflow is actually its transfer of bitcoin between its hot and cold wallets. The price of bitcoin is also down about 3.5 percent from its weekly high of more than $29,700 on May 6, according to data from Cointelegraph.
