Investing.com -- Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, halted Bitcoin withdrawals for the second time in about 12 hours on Monday, citing congestion on the blockchain due to a large volume of pending transactions.
The step was taken due to a โheavy volume of Binance withdrawal transactions still pending,โ Binance said on Twitter, as the exchange did not anticipate a recent increase in Bitcoin gas fees.
Gas fees are a cost that users of a blockchain pay to its validators each time they want to transact on the network. Bitcoin recently experienced a rise in gas fees amid increased interest in a new token standard, BRC-20, which prompted the launch of several new memecoins this year.
Binance had previously suspended withdrawals for about an hour on Sunday, citing congested networks. Other major cryptocurrency exchanges, such as Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN) and Kraken, have not announced any pause in withdrawals.
BRC-20, which was released earlier this year by a coder known as "Domo," allows users to implement new tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. This, in turn, saw the emergence of several new memcoins, sparking a speculative trading frenzy in which users raced to be the first buyers in a new wave of tokens.
This resulted in increased trading activity on the Bitcoin blockchain, driving gas rates to nearly two-year highs. But it also saw traders fall prey to a series of new pump-and-dump schemes, a recurring incident in crypto markets.
Binance had also listed several of the new memecoins generated under the BRC-20 standard, most notably the PEPE token. But the exchange also warned users of a possible speculative bubble, stating that the tokens were of no use.
The broader crypto markets weakened on Monday, with Bitcoin slipping 2.2% while Binance's native token BNB fell 1.5%. The world's No. 2 cryptocurrency, Ethereum, fell almost 2%.
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