Binance to temporarily suspend ETH and WETH deposits and withdrawals ahead of the Merge

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance announced Monday that it plans to halt all deposits and withdrawals of Ethereum (ETH) and Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) on selected networks, starting September 6th at 2 am (UTC) in anticipation of Ethereum's Merge event.

#Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals for Ether $ETH and Wrapped Ether $WETH on the following networks starting from September 6, 2022 at 02:00am UTC.

ETH (Arbitrum)
ETH (OP)
WETH (RON)

— Binance (@binance) September 5, 2022

In the announcement, the company shared a list of tokens and networks that will be impacted during the Merge — Namely ETH (Arbitrum), ETH (OP) and WETH (RON). The company stated that deposits of Ethereum (ETH) and Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) made on these networks during the suspension will not be credited, and affected users will not be eligible to receive any “forked token credit in the event of a chain split."

The suspension of transactions on the named networks is scheduled to last until the Merge is complete. According to Binance, this is being done to “secure the allocation of forked tokens in the case of a chain split."

Binance said that this precautionary move is only temporary, and that deposits and withdrawals of Ether (ETH) and Wrapped Ether (WETH) on the impacted networks will resume once the networks are deemed stable after the Merge is complete. During the Merge, ETH trading will not be impacted by the named network suspensions.

The long-awaited event is expected to reduce the Ethereum network's energy consumption by a predicted 99.95%, making it more environmentally friendly.

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Binance shared in another official statement Monday that it plans to introduce a BUSD auto-conversion feature on Sept 29 to help users convert their USDC, USDP, and TUSD balances into the BUSD stable coin at a 1:1 ratio. According to the exchange, this is being done “to enhance liquidity and capital efficiency for users”, and will not affect users when it comes to withdrawing their funds in USDC, USDP, and TUSD.