South Korea’s Upbit Pauses OSMO Deposits and Withdrawals After Network Failure

Upbit, a South Korean crypto exchange, temporarily halted Osmosis (OSMO) deposit and withdrawal activities because there is no block production on the Osmosis blockchain, which makes it impossible for users to transfer the cryptocurrency on their own chain. The restriction on the deposit and withdrawal of funds using the Osmosis Chain was stated in an announcement from Upbit released on November 13, 2021, at 10:21 AM (Korean Standard Time). Users can still trade OSMO through Upbit. The suspension is due to an outage experienced across the network, confirmed by blockchain infrastructure service QuickNode. 

Bithumb and Coinbase Also Report Transaction Disruptions Following Osmosis Outage

Other cryptocurrency exchanges such as Bithumb and Coinbase have also reported difficulties transacting on the same network. Upbit noted that the reason why it suspended the transaction services was because Osmosis has ceased to create new blocks, which is needed to process and confirm transactions on the blockchain. 

The basis of this temporary ban is Article 17, Paragraph 1, Subparagraph A of the Enforcement Decree of South Korea's Virtual Asset User Protection Act. This notice refers only to OSMO deposits and withdrawals on the Osmosis Chain. Upbit did not suspend trading or delist the coin.

Customers with OSMO already stored in their Upbit accounts are still free to make transactions through the market offerings of Upbit. But it is not possible for users to deposit or withdraw their funds via this blockchain until the restrictions are lifted. As per the notice published by the firm, they will make an announcement about resuming the services once they are sure about the safety of making deposits and withdrawals.

QuickNode reported the blockchain disruption through an incident report on November 12. According to the infrastructure company, Osmosis failed to produce blocks at 22:57 UTC on November 12, with the blockchain stuck at block height 74,955,152.

According to their release, the issue was called “Network-Wide Stall” because the outage had an impact on providers that used the blockchain. QuickNode started investigating the issue and assured its clients that it would resume processing new blocks after the network restarted.

Upbit was not the only cryptocurrency exchange affected by the Osmosis downtime. Another South Korean exchange, Bithumb, released an announcement about suspending OSMO deposits and withdrawals because of the same issue with blockchain block production. The deposit and withdrawal suspension of Bithumb was planned to be announced at 8:43 a.m. Korea time, before Upbit released theirs.

At the same time, Coinbase reported delays in OSMO transactions in a different service update on November 12. According to the US crypto exchange, customers faced difficulties with the transfer of Osmosis tokens. But it noted that trading and deposits of cryptocurrencies and fiat currencies did not have any impact. Coinbase is investigating the issue and reassures its users about the safety of their assets.