Crypto Stocks Fall After Binance Halts Bitcoin Withdrawals For Hours

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(Reuters) – Shares of cryptocurrency and blockchain-related companies fell in early trading hours on Monday after Binance halted bitcoin withdrawals for several hours due to heavy volumes and rising fees. treatment.

The stops pushed bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, down 2% to a one-week low of $27,900.

Crypto exchange Coinbase Inc fell 3.6%, while blockchain farm operator Bitfarms Ltd fell 5.1%. Crypto miners, including Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital and U.S.-listed shares of Hut 8 Mining, fell between 5.3% and 6.6%, following the decline in bitcoin prices.

Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, closed bitcoin withdrawals for an hour late on Sunday and for around three hours on Monday, saying there was a glut of pending transactions as it had not offered to self -saying miners a high enough reward to register the trades on the blockchain.

The company said its fixed fee does not anticipate a recent increase in bitcoin network gas fees – payments made to crypto miners whose computing power processes transactions on the blockchain.

“There were so many traffic jams and gas costs were so high this weekend…even by historical standards,” Oppenheimer’s Owen Lau told Reuters.

Binance said in a tweet that the company had adjusted its fees to “prevent a similar recurrence.”

In March, it suspended deposits and withdrawals citing technical issues.

(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.

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