Binance Resumes Bitcoin Withdrawals After Pause, Cites Congestion of Network

One of the world’s largest crypto exchanges Binance has resumed withdrawal of Bitcoin on its platform after it was paused earlier, citing a congestion of network issues.

In a tweet made on Sunday announcing the pause of Bitcoin withdrawal,  Binance wrote,

“We’ve temporarily closed $BTC withdrawals as the Bitcoin network is experiencing a congestion issue. Our team is currently working on a fix until the network is stabilized and will reopen $BTC withdrawals as soon as possible. Rest assured funds are SAFU”.

The number of unconfirmed transactions was reported to be over 400,000. The halt pushed Bitcoin lower though its losses were marginal, with cryptocurrency last down about 1% to $28, its lowest in nearly a week.

In a follow-up tweet, which was up to an hour, the company announced that it has resumed withdrawals, as it thanked users for their patience and apologized for any inconvenience.

It further assured them that the team is working on enabling BTC Lightning Network withdrawals, to prevent a similar reoccurrence in the future. The company said that higher fees have been applied to pending transactions so they can get picked up by Bitcoin miners.

Investors King understands that this is not the first time Binance has paused withdrawals due to network congestion. In June 2022, the crypto exchange CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ), via a tweet announced that the platform had temporarily paused Bitcoin withdrawals due to a stuck transaction causing a backlog.

This spurred concerns from some users who attributed the issue to a regulatory premonition, stating that the suspension of withdrawals was deliberate, noting that the exchange tried to maneuver around a small profit margin because of high transaction fees.

Meanwhile, it has been observed that Binance in its tweets while announcing any pause on its platform, often makes use of the phrase “rest assured funds are SAFU”. It is understood that the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) is an emergency fund that was established by Binance in July 2018 to protect users’ funds. When the fund was established, Binance committed a percentage of trading fees to grow it to a sizable level to safeguard users.