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Why Binance Will Suspend Ethereum And Wrapped Ether Wallet Services Ahead Of “The Merge”

Per an official post, crypto exchange Binance will take extra precautions during Ethereum’s “Merge”. The platform announced a halt in ETH deposits and withdrawals across multiple networks starting tomorrow September 6th, 2022, at 2:00 UTC.

Users will be unable to deposit or take out their Ethereum (ETH) from the exchange, as mentioned, and they will lose any funds from incoming transactions. The limitation will extend from tomorrow until the mainnet deployment of “The Merge”.

This event is one of Ethereum and the crypto industry’s most anticipated events. The network will complete its transition from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol opening the door for scalability, performance, and other updates.

“The Merge” has been tentatively scheduled for September 12th, 2022, but preparations for the event will take place in the coming week. In addition to ETH, Ethereum’s native token, Binance will halt deposits and withdrawals of its synthetic forms on multiple networks.

Therefore, users will be unable to deposit or withdraw ETH on the Arbitrum and Optimism network and Wrapped Ethereum (Weth) on the Ronin Network. The crypto exchange claimed the following:

Binance will suspend deposits and withdrawals for Ether (ETH) and Wrapped Ether (WETH) on multiple networks on 2022-09-06 at 02:00 (UTC). The suspension will last until the Merge is complete. Deposits and withdrawals of Ether (ETH) and Wrapped Ether (WETH) on the impacted networks will resume when the networks are deemed stable.

Users will need to be notified when deposit and withdrawal resume. As “The Merge” approaches, there is speculation about potential ETH forks from different factions.

For example, miners might want to fork ETH to continue mining the cryptocurrency. The original ETH will operate under a new validation model that will effectively render miners obsolete. Binance seems to be prepared to mitigate any risk from these potential forks and any errors during “The Merge”.

ETH’s price moving sideways on the 4-hour chart. Source: ETHUSDT Tradingview
Ethereum Inventor Asks Community About His Favorite Crypto Personality

Other exchange platforms will take similar measures, many will halt their ETH deposits and withdrawals. However, as Binance clarified, the measure will not apply to other services and products.

Users will still be able to trade with their ETH on the many different trading pairs before, during, and after “The Merge” across their different sectors. As outlined by the inventor of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, this event will be followed by “The Surge”, “The Verge”, “The Purge”, and “The Splurge”.

Each of these phases will enable the network to achieve its goal of onboarding millions of people into a “world computer”. Buterin recently asked his followers on Twitter a series of questions about himself and their perception of his personality.

One of the questions involved people voting on Buterin’s favorite crypto character. At the time of writing, most voters agreed that Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO and founder of Binance, is the crypto personality that Buterin respects the most.