• Bitcoin prices recently dropped nearly 3%, raising concerns of a further downtrend.
• Binance temporarily halted BTC withdrawals due to an overflow of transactions on the blockchain.
• There were reports of approximately 400,000 pending transactions waiting in the Bitcoin mempool for processing.
Recent Drop in Bitcoin Prices
The recent dip in Bitcoin prices has raised some concern among investors about a possible downtrend. The popular cryptocurrency saw a decline of nearly 3%, leaving many wondering about its future and if it will recover from this setback.
Binance Suspends BTC Withdrawals
In response to the large volume of pending transactions, Binance has temporarily suspended BTC withdrawals for the second time in 12 hours. At the time of closure, there were around 485,000 backlogged transactions in the mempool worth more than $5 billion.
Bitcoin Mempool Congestion
The Bitcoin mempool serves as an area where transaction are kept awaiting verification by each node on the blockchain. At present, there are approximately 400,000 pending transactions waiting to be processed in this area.
High Transaction Fees
Due to high transaction fees associated with processing these transactions on the blockchain, Binance was forced to halt BTC withdrawals until further notice. This is not unusual as high fees can cause delays and backlogs due to miners prioritizing higher fee paying transactions first.
Recommendations
To avoid such issues, some exchanges such as OKX have recommended using lightning network solutions instead which can help reduce transaction costs and improve overall speed and efficiency for users making transfers on the network.