In the crypto market, the news that the crypto exchange Binance has suspended withdrawals of Bitcoin twice within twelve hours is causing selling pressure. The world's largest trading platform for digital currencies pointed to an overload of the blockchain. To ensure that Bitcoin miners execute the transactions, Binance has increased the fees. In Asian trading, Bitcoin withdrawals were not possible for more than two hours on Binance on Monday, as they did not find their way into the virtual ledger.

"To prevent something like this from happening again in the future, we have adjusted our fees," it said. "We will continue to monitor activity on the blockchain and adjust accordingly as needed." In the meantime, Bitcoin withdrawals are possible again. Yesterday, Binance had stopped Bitcoin withdrawals for about 90 minutes, already pointing to an overload of the blockchain.

Transactions worth 4 billion euros

According to blockchain analytics specialist CryptoQuant, around $4.4 billion (€4 billion) worth of Bitcoin was moved through the exchange's digital wallets at Binance on Sunday. This happened in two tranches of 117,000 and 40,000 Bitcoin, as analysis chief Julio Moreno explained in a tweet. In his opinion, however, the volume of effective outflows is likely to have been only 10,100 BTC.

Binance said in a tweet on Monday that due to BTC address adjustments, coins had been moved between wallets with a permanent internet connection (hot) and so-called cold wallets. The latter are considered to be a particularly secure way of storing digital currencies.

Last year's crypto crash, and especially the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange, have undermined confidence in digital asset platforms. Crypto traders are therefore on guard when it comes to major shifts related to assets on exchanges.