Binance customers are currently unable to withdraw Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
Binance Freezes Withdrawals
Binance has temporarily stopped customers from withdrawing their crypto assets. The leading cryptocurrency exchange announced the update in a tweet Monday, explaining that it had disabled all withdrawals “due to a large backlog.”
The post added that the team was “working on it with top priority” and apologized for the inconvenience.
The exchange has experienced similar issues in the past. During periods of peak interest in cryptocurrency, Binance and other centralized exchanges have suffered from overload, often leaving users locked out or unable to withdraw their funds.
When the market experienced a major crash on May 19, 2021, Binance, Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) and other exchanges temporarily went down, leaving many users unable to access their assets as prices tumbled. Binance was accused of causing traders millions of dollars in losses at the time; the Swiss litigation finance group Liti Capital has since raised $5 million to sue the exchange on behalf of the traders affected.
In a similar scenario, users of Coinbase and other major exchanges reported outages last week as Shiba Inu soared to all-time highs. Though Binance is yet to elaborate on today’s issue beyond noting “a large backlog,” the rising interest in meme coins like Shiba Inu may explain the update.
While Binance has halted withdrawals, Coinbase and other centralized exchanges appear to be running as normal. Nonetheless, the latest incident is a reminder of one of crypto’s favorite mantras: not your keys, not your coins.
Update: The exchange said that it had resumed crypto withdrawals after approximately 25 minutes, before posting a further update announcing that it had closed them once again. Withdrawals are still disabled at the time of writing.