Binance suspends withdrawals from Solana due to 'increased volume'

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Crypto exchange Binance has announced that it has intermittently suspended withdrawals on the Solana network due to an “increased volume of transactions,” which prompted the exchange to look for ways to optimize its system and handle the transactions.

This suspension began in March 4, and will continue by at least March 9, or until such time Binance finds a solution for handling the sudden surge in transactions. According to data from CoinGecko, Binance handles about 24% of SOL transaction volume, with an estimated daily volume of $2.4 billion.

Despite the temporary suspension, Solana’s native SOL token dipped by just 3.8% over the past 24 hours, and is now trading at $127. The token is up 14.5% over the past week.

Binance is not alone in grappling with performance bottlenecks amid heightened cryptocurrency trading activity. Major exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Bybit also reported outages last week due to a confluence of factors, including growing retail interest paired with an influx of orders from algorithmic trading firms seeking to maintain their positions.

The outage and technical issues from Coinbase, in particular, happened around the time Bitcoin surpassed the $67,000 level. At the time, Bitcoin’s market capitalization momentarily surpassed that of silver to become the world’s eighth-largest asset class.

This phenomenon is commonly attributed to an increased demand from retail interest, with the price action of a particular cryptocurrency gaining velocity, resulting to exchanges like Binance receiving an unexpected number of transactions which it may be unprepared to handle.

Despite the performance hiccups, Binance recently received recognition for its cybersecurity efforts. In 2024, it earned the Cyber Security Professional Merit Award in the banking and finance category from Hong Kong authorities—the only Web3 firm to receive such an accolade.

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