Cryptocurrency Black Monday continues to wreak havoc. Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, tweeted that there would be a temporary pause in Bitcoin (BTC) withdrawals.
Temporary pause of $BTC withdrawals on #Binance due to a stuck transaction causing a backlog. Should be fixed in ~30 minutes. Will update.
Funds are SAFU.
— CZ Binance (@cz_binance) June 13, 2022
Temporary pause of $BTC withdrawals on Binance due to a stuck transaction causing a delay. It should be fixed in about 30 minutes. Will be updated.
The funds are SAFU (safe asset funds for users).
Often giving his opinion on projects and the market, CZ regularly tweets on behalf of Binance to his 6.4 million followers. He quickly updated the tweet to state:
“This is only affecting the Bitcoin network. You can still withdraw Bitcoin on other networks like BEP-20.”
“SAFU” is a meme that plays on the word “safe”, which first appeared in a YouTube video from 2018. It also refers to Binance’s trading hedge fund, the Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).. The fund was built during the previous bear market, but in light of Celsius’s potential insolvency, investors may be right to raise alarm.
According to a follow-up tweet, the exchange setback may be worse than previously thought:
“This will likely take a bit longer to fix than my initial estimate. More updates soon. Thanks for your patience and understanding.”
The official Binance Twitter account confirmed the delay, suggesting that the problem was due to a “stuck on-chain transaction”. According to some commentators, Bitcoin’s Lightning Network would have prevented this problem.
In fact, despite Binance’s size and global presence, it has yet to catch up with its competitors when it comes to Lightning integration. Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO of competitor exchange FTX, tweeted recently that would encourage developers to work on layer 2 protocol integration on the exchange, while Coinbase and Binance lag behind.
Kraken also recently allowed its clients to withdraw funds from accounts instantly, using the Lightning Network. In welcome and positive news, the total amount of Bitcoin on the network recently crossed the 4,000 BTC milestone.
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