Crypto exchange Binance reopens dogecoin withdrawals after Elon Musk’s spat with CEO

Traders were unable to withdraw Dogecoin for more than two weeks because of problems related to a network upgrade. The world’s biggest crypto exchange said that the glitch was ‘an unlikely and unfortunate coincidence’ and ‘not quite the shady circumstances that some had suggested.’

Tesla founder Elon Musk had delivered a stinging rebuke to Binance Chief Executive Changpeng Zhao on Twitter after the cryptocurrency exchange limited withdrawals of meme-based digital currency dogecoin. “Hey @cz_binance, what’s going on with your doge customers? Sounds shady,” Musk tweeted on Tuesday.

Binance responded saying it is rebuilding its dogecoin wallet entirely, resulting in a delay in withdrawals that may continue for another week. While the official Binance handle stuck to official explanations, the company’s CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao cheekily hit back with a link to a story on Tesla recalling nearly 12,000 cars as a result of a software glitch.

An upgrade of the Dogecoin network on November 10 appeared to have caused an issue with network withdrawals, Binance had said in a statement . A ‘very small number of users’ were affected, they said, explaining that some previously failed Dogecoin withdrawal transactions got resent after the update, and the exchange was requesting those users to return the assets.”

Dogecoin, a memecoin that was created as a joke in 2013, is down about 30% in the past 30 days, according to CoinGecko pricing. It has gained about 6,000% in the past year, spurred by frenzied trading and wider cryptocurrency acceptance.