By Frances Yue
Bitcoin deepened its losses on Monday, falling more than 3.8% to the lowest level in almost two weeks, as Binance, the largest crypto exchange, paused bitcoin withdrawals twice over the weekend.
The largest cryptocurrency BTCUSD on Monday fell to as low as $27,650, the lowest level since April 26, according to CoinDesk data. Bitcoin is up over 70% so far this year, but is still down almost 60% from its all-time high in 2021.
Binance said late Sunday that it temporarily closed bitcoin withdrawals due to a large volume of pending transactions. The withdrawals have been resumed, according to Binance.
“There is a large volume of withdrawal transactions from Binance still pending as our set fees did not anticipate the recent surge in $BTC network gas fees,” the company said in a tweet. Gas fees refer to fees paid to miners to validate transactions on a blockchain.
Binance’s pause of withdrawals has weighed on bitcoin prices from Sunday to Monday, said David Tawil, president and co-founder at ProChain Capital.
Bitcoin has been mostly trading in the range of $28,000 and $30,000 for the past month. “We had massive volatility inside of that range,” said Tawil.
It is hard to know what catalysts might drive bitcoin out of the range, though there are many potential ones on the horizon, including regulators’ actions against the crypto industry, debt ceiling concerns and a potential recession, noted Tawil.
Read: Recession fears fuel investors’ search for safe havens. Is bitcoin a good choice?
-Frances Yue
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05-08-23 1356ET
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