forexcryptozone — Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency alternate, suspended withdrawals for the second time in about 12 p.m. Monday, citing blockchain congestion on account of a excessive quantity of pending trades.
This motion was taken on account of a “massive quantity of Binance withdrawal transactions nonetheless pending,” Binance stated on Twitter, because the alternate had not anticipated a latest improve in Bitcoin gasoline charges.
Gasoline charges are a value paid by customers of a blockchain to its validators every time they want to transact on the community. Bitcoin has just lately seen a spike in gasoline charges amid elevated curiosity in a brand new token commonplace, BRC-20, which has spurred the launch of a number of new memecoins this yr.
Binance earlier on Sunday suspended withdrawals for about an hour, citing congested networks. Different main crypto exchanges comparable to Coinbase (NASDAQ:) and Kraken had not introduced any pause in withdrawals.
BRC-20, which was launched earlier this yr by an encoder often known as “Domo”, permits customers to deploy new tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. This in flip noticed the rise of a number of new memcoins, sparking a speculative buying and selling frenzy the place customers rushed to be early consumers in a brand new wave of tokens.
This has led to a rise in buying and selling exercise on the Bitcoin blockchain, pushing gasoline charges to just about two-year highs. Nevertheless it has additionally seen merchants fall prey to a number of recent pump and dump schemes, a recurring incident in crypto markets.
Binance had additionally listed a number of of the brand new memecoins generated beneath the BRC-20 commonplace, together with the PEPE token. However the alternate had additionally warned customers of a doable speculative bubble, saying the tokens had no use.
The broader crypto markets weakened on Monday, with Bitcoin down 2.2%, whereas Binance’s native token, , fell 1.5%. The world’s No. 2 cryptocurrency fell practically 2%.