Binance cryptocurrency exchange closed bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals on May 7 due to an alleged transaction overflow on the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin mempool was clogged with over 400,000 transactions wait to be processed at the time of writing. The mempool is known as the "holding area" for incoming transactions before each node on the network independently verifies them.
Binance tweeted that BTC withdrawals had resumed after almost an hour outage. Outflows on the crypto exchange peaked on Sunday, growing to $187 million, according to data from CryptoQuant.
Behind the congestion is believed to be an increase in BRC-20 transactions in recent days due to memecoins like Pepe (PEPE). The memecoin hype drove Bitcoin transaction fees to an all-time high in two years. On May 3, the total amount of fees paid on the Bitcoin blockchain reached $3.5 million, increasing nearly 400% since the end of April, Cointelegraph reported.
developed after 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. It is currently becoming a hot spot for meme tokens.
CoinMarketCap data shows that the price of PEPE has risen more than 263% in the last week. However, at the time of writing, the meme coin is down over 7% following a 30% drop on May 6 as whales. benefited from recent Binance listing. MEXC Global, Bitget, Gate.io and Huobi cryptocurrency exchanges PEPE trading pairs listed two weeks ago, kicking off the token hype.
From the introduction of Dogecoin in 2013, memecoins have become a major part of the cryptocurrency world, creating and ruining fortunes alike. Investopedia define a memecoin as a cryptocurrency represented "with comical or animated memes, endorsed by enthusiastic online traders and followers."
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