Binance crypto exchange suspended Bitcoin withdrawals for a second time on May 8, citing a significant volume of pending withdrawal requests.
Binance tweeted on May 8 that it had “temporarily” suspended BTC withdrawals due to a “large volume of pending transactions.”
It added that the transactions were still pending because “set fees did not anticipate the recent surge in [Bitcoin] network gas fees.”
Almost two hours after its initial tweet, the exchange provided an update stating that it was “replacing the pending [Bitcoin] withdrawal transactions with a higher fee so that mining pools pick them up.”
Nearly three hours after its initial tweet, Binance announced that Bitcoin withdrawals had resumed and that pending transactions were being processed with increased transaction fees.
It added that it was working to enable withdrawals through the Lightning Network, which it claimed could mitigate future withdrawal halts.
On May 7, Binance temporarily suspended Bitcoin withdrawals, citing an influx of blockchain transactions. It reopened withdrawals after more than an hour and a half.
The Bitcoin mempool had a backlog of approximately 400 thousand transactions, according to data from mempool. This number increased to roughly 485,000 during Binance’s second withdrawal halt.
A mempool is a location where Bitcoin network transactions “wait” before each blockchain node verifies them.
According to data from CryptoQuant, Binance saw substantial Bitcoin net negative outflows on May 7, with approximately 175,650 BTC worth roughly $4.95 billion leaving the exchange.
Binance asserted that this discharge data represented Bitcoin transfers between its hot and cold wallets.
According to recent data, the price of Bitcoin has dropped approximately 3.5% from its weekly peak of over $29,700 on May 6.
