Binance halts Bitcoin withdrawals for the second time in 12 hours

Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals on Binance have again been temporarily shuttered, with the crypto exchange claiming it was due to a large backlog of pending withdrawals.

Binance tweeted on May 8 that it closed off BTC withdrawals “temporarily” as there was a “large volume of pending transactions.”

It added the transactions are still pending, as its “set fees did not anticipate the recent surge in [Bitcoin] network gas fees.”

There is a large volume of withdrawal transactions from Binance still pending as our set fees did not anticipate the recent surge in $BTC network gas fees.
Our team is working to accelerate the confirmation of all pending transactions.
We'll provide updates here.

— Binance (@binance) May 8, 2023

The exchange said it was “working on a fix,” and that withdrawals for Bitcoin would be back “as soon as possible." It added it was working to “accelerate the confirmation of all pending transactions.”

Earlier on May 7, Binance also had to temporarily suspend Bitcoin withdrawals, claiming there was an overflow of transactions on the blockchain. It reopened withdrawals over an hour and a half later.

At the time, the Bitcoin mempool had a backlog of around 400,000 transactions waiting to be processed. That's now swelled to nearly 485,000, according to data from mempool.space.

A mempool is an area where transactions on the Bitcoin network “wait” before being verified by each blockchain node.

Binance saw significant Bitcoin net negative outflows on May 7 with around 175,650 BTC worth around $4.95 billion flowing from the exchange on the day according to data from CryptoQuant.

The price of Bitcoin has also fallen around 3.5% from its weekly high of over $29,700 on May 6, as per Cointelegraph data.

Cointelegraph contacted Binance for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

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Update (May 8, 2:43 am UTC): This article has been updated with additional information from Binance on why it suspended withdrawals.

Update (May 8, 3:35 am UTC): This article has been updated with Bitcoin price data and net outflow data from CryptoQuant.