Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, announced on Monday that it is temporarily halting bitcoin withdrawals, but advised customers to use other networks.
A tweet from Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao noting the issue came at 8 a.m. ET, to which he said the problem would be fixed in about 30 minutes. However, Zhao later said that it would “take a little longer to fix”. [his] Preliminary guess.”
While the issue went to Binance, Zhao said in a tweet that holders “can still withdraw Bitcoin On other networks like BEP-20.”
“The funds are SAFU,” he said. The acronym stands for “User Secured Asset Fund,” a fund that the company established in 2018 to help protect users.
“Binance has temporarily paused #Bitcoin withdrawals on the $BTC network. In the meantime, you can still withdraw BTC on other networks,” Binance wrote on Twitter.
“This is due to a stuck on-chain transaction. Our team is currently working on a solution and will provide more updates soon,” the cryptocurrency exchange noted.
It further said that only one network, the bitcoin network, is affected due to the stuck batch of transactions.
“Users can withdraw $BTC on the Ethereum or BNB chain while our team works to resolve this temporary halving,” it said.
The company updated in a statement that bitcoin network withdrawals have now resumed on Binance.
Meanwhile, bitcoin fell to an 18-month low below $23,000 in a broader cryptocurrency crash on Monday, as investors abandoned riskier assets in the face of a vicious global market sell-off, with the virtual unit hitting record highs. After just seven months.
The world’s most popular crypto asset was also hit hard by the news that crypto lending platform Celsius Network halted withdrawals citing volatile conditions.
World stock markets have tumbled since Friday, when data showed US inflation hitting a four-decade high.
This heightened fears of a global recession and prompted investors to flee riskier cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin and ether and move to traditional safe assets such as the dollar.