Cryptocurrency trade Binance halted bitcoin withdrawals for a number of hours on Monday, citing heavy volumes and a surge in processing charges, earlier than clearing them at the next price.

Late on Sunday and once more early on Monday the world’s largest crypto trade shut bitcoin withdrawals saying there was a glut of pending transactions as a result of it hadn’t supplied so-called miners a excessive sufficient reward to log the trades on the blockchain.

The halt pushed bitcoin decrease although its losses have been marginal, with the cryptocurrency final down about 1% to $28,162, its lowest in almost per week.

“Our set charges didn’t anticipate the latest surge in (bitcoin) community fuel charges,” Binance mentioned in a tweet. “We’re changing the pending bictoin withdrawal transactions with the next price in order that they get picked up by mining swimming pools.”

Fuel charges discuss with funds made to crypto miners whose computing energy processes transactions on the blockchain.

“If the withdrawal quantity is massive, the fuel price required to course of the transaction may additionally be massive, particularly throughout occasions of excessive community congestion,” Joshua Chu, group chief danger officer at blockchain know-how group XBE, Coinllectibles and Marvion.

“We want extra data as to what has led to the massive withdrawals.” After an hour-long stoppage late on Sunday and several other hours on Monday, Binance mentioned withdrawals resumed.

“To forestall the same recurrence … our charges have been adjusted.” In a separate tweet Binance denied there had been massive outflows from the platform.

In March, Binance had suspended deposits and withdrawals citing tech points. Twenty-four hour buying and selling quantity on Binance was $6.9 billion in response to analytics website CoinMarketCap, greater than eight occasions the next-largest venue, Coinbase.