Binance Quietly Re-Enables Litecoin Withdrawals
Good news for Litecoin holders: Binance has quietly turned native Litecoin withdrawals back on.
On October 29, Binance was hit by a major hack on its hot wallets. That night, Binance paused withdrawals for every coin on the exchange while it ran security checks. Deposits briefly stopped, but were allowed quickly after the incident.
Over the next couple of weeks, Binance turned withdrawals back on in stages. Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin came back first. On November 3, Litecoin became available again as a wrapped token on BNB Smart Chain, but withdrawals on Litecoin's own network were still paused.
On November 6, Binance said Litecoin was on its list to reopen by the end of the following week. It came back sooner than that. Overnight on November 9, Binance quietly re-enabled native Litecoin withdrawals without an announcement. Its own network status now shows Litecoin deposits and withdrawals both turned on, and community members started noticing early this morning.
So how did Litecoin hold up while one of the world's biggest exchanges was frozen?
Pretty well. In the three weeks before the hack, the Litecoin network averaged about 161,000 transactions a day. During the roughly 11 days that withdrawals were paused, it averaged about 156,000 a day. That's a small dip of around 3.6%, and most days stayed within the normal range. The quietest stretch was the weekend of November 8 and 9, at about 146,000 transactions a day.
That's the point of a network like Litecoin. Exchanges can pause, but Litecoin keeps running. People kept sending, receiving and paying with LTC the whole time, block after block.
Now that native withdrawals are back, Binance users can move their Litecoin to their own wallets again. It's a good reminder that holding your own keys is one of the best things you can do with your crypto.
Sources:
