Binance pauses Bitcoin withdrawals, Pepe memetoken falls from Friday highs

Binance pauses Bitcoin withdrawals twice on Sunday

Binance paused Bitcoin withdrawals twice on Sunday as the Bitcoin network saw an increase in congestion and transaction fees, CoinDesk reported.

The global exchange initially took to Twitter to announce the pause, and cited a “congestion issue.” The company later lifted the pause and apologised to customers, but paused again eight hours later.

The Bitcoin network has seen highly increased activity since the implementation of its BRC-20 standard, which allow for the creation and transaction of ordinal inscription tokens.

Ordinals are data inscribed on satoshis, the lowest denomination of a Bitcoin. The data can include smart contracts, images or HTML. To put it simply, ordinals are NFTs that you can mint on the Bitcoin blockchain.

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Pepe token falls 40% from Friday’s all-time high

Memecoin Pepe continued its fall from meteoric highs on Sunday, dropping 40.5% to $0.000002501 from its Friday all-time high of $0.00000420, The Block reported.

Pepe has been one of the most successful memecoins — coins based on cultural memes and financial speculation — since Dogecoin or SHIBA INU, despite warnings from exchanges that the coin provides no utility nor use case.

The coin was listed on Binance and other exchanges last week.

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Bitcoin congestion fuels crypto community debate, some cry foul play

Congestion on the Bitcoin network has caused a wave of debate in regards to its origin, with some saying that the slowdown is part of a concerted attack.

Over 469,000 transactions are waiting for confirmation in the Bitcoin network, which has caused high fees and slowdowns.

The congestion caused some vocal members of the crypto Twitterati to cry foul play, Decrypt reported. They argued that it was an attempt to squeeze out small users.

Crypto Twitter users with ties to Bitcoin focused on possible vulnerabilities caused by BRC-20 tokens such as high transaction fees and long wait times.

BRC-20 tokens are new experimental way to use the technology to mint new tokens. The experimental standard is what enables the minting of ordinals discussed earlier.

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NYDFS proposes sweeping crypto bill for NY state

Crypto firms will have to reimburse victims of fraud if a new bill proposed in New York is enforced. The New York Department of Financial Services proposed the bill on Friday.

Attorney General Letitia James proposed the bill that includes a conflict-of-interest clause in direct opposition of the business model of many crypto firms, such as the ability to offer custody and brokerage services as well as trading platforms.

The NYDFS has adopted a regulatory hardline against the industry in recent months, with enforcement actions levied against major firms such as KuCoin in regards to what it calls violations of securities laws.

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Memecoin “speedrunner” creates a token in 27 seconds in viral video

A viral video released Friday on Twitter highlighted the possible return of memecoin frenzy, Decrypt reported.

In the video, Twitter user @iamwhitelights demonstrates a “speedrun” for creating a new crypto token in record time.

Dubbed EASY_MONEY, the token was created with a programme that generates code from a small set of inputs to create a smart contract for a new asset.

@iamwhitelights managed to create the token in 27 seconds, and went on to warn that the video was for educational purposes only.

More web3 news from around the web…

Voyager digital plans to liquidate assets, wind down after sale dreams crushed — CoinDesk

Chinese users of the Binance and FTX exchanges show holes in Beijing’s crypto ban — Bloomberg

Sushi launches concentrated liquidity on 13 blockchains — The Defiant