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Cryptocurrency exchange Binance closed Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals on May 7 due to an alleged overflow of transactions on the Bitcoin network.
The Bitcoin mempool has been jammed with over 400,000 transactions pending processing at the time of writing. The mempool is known as the “waiting zone” for incoming transactions before they are independently verified by each node in the network.
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.
— Binance (@binance) May 7, 2023
The spike in BRC-20 transactions over the past few days is believed to be behind the congestion. The trading frenzy on memcoins like PEPE has sent Bitcoin transaction fees to their highest level in two years. According to CoinMarketCap, the PEPE token has jumped over 263% in the last 7 days.
Developed after the Ethereum ERC-20 token standard, BRC-20 is a recently introduced experimental token standard that allows users to create and transfer fungible tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain.
This is an evolving story and more information will be added as it becomes available.
