Binance suspends Dogecoin withdrawals for 2 weeks

Binance, the leading crypto-exchange in terms of market capitalization, has announced that it is suspending withdrawals in Dogecoin (DOGE) for two weeks. The cause is the Dogecoin update that allegedly triggered a glitch on Binance. Users are furious. 

The suspension of withdrawals in Dogecoin on Binance

The world’s largest exchange by daily volumes, Binance, has reported that it is experiencing problems on the DOGE network, stemming from the recent Dogecoin update and is therefore suspending withdrawals in DOGE for two weeks. Here’s the statement:

“Due to the complex nature of the issue, we expect DOGE network withdrawals to be suspended for the next 10 to 14 days from 2021-11-15″.

The “complex nature of the problem” also refers to the interaction between Binance and its users who would be affected by the update. In this regard, Binance writes:

“We have written directly via email to the very small number of users directly impacted by the update where previously failed DOGE withdrawal transactions got resent after the recent update. We are kindly requesting those users to return the assets”.

Meanwhile, users have not been happy about the freezing of withdrawals. According to the Telegram group of affected users, a couple of people were able to withdraw their funds. However, as of Monday afternoon, most of the group, which now has 26 members, have been waiting to regain access to their cryptocurrencies since Thursday. 

Dogecoin blocked on Binance: Dogecoin’s explanation

Dogecoin informed its users on Twitter, using 10 key points to explain their version of what is happening with Binance. 

First of all, it seems that already more than a year ago, Binance would have notified the developers of DOGE that they had transactions blocked due to insufficient commissions and that they would have chosen to postpone/reissue these transactions. In this regard, here is how Dogecoin responded to Binance: 

“We instructed Binance to use the inputs to the stuck transactions to force them to be invalidated by the replacement transactions. We were not notified as to whether or not they followed these instructions”.

With Dogecoin’s latest update 1.14.5 reducing commissions on DOGE transactions, the problem for Binance still seems to be related to those same transactions that went through, (both blocked and deferred/reissued transactions) which is why the exchange is now demanding the return of assets to its users.  

On that note, here’s what the developers of Dogecoin have to say on Twitter:

“Yesterday we were notified that previously stuck transactions (insufficient fee) had suddenly relayed successfully, post 1.14.5 update – likely because minfees have been lowered in 1.14.5… Currently what we believe has happened is the previously stuck transactions have been retried automatically, as would happen on each node restart after upgrade – and went through, since now the minfee is lower…”.

Dogecoin update and Elon Musk’s support

Dogecoin’s Core 1.14.5 upgrade that reduces transaction fees in DOGE was completed exactly one week ago, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk supporting the news. 

And indeed, it’s no news that the richest man in the world with his tweets of few words always stays on top of everything related to his favourite crypto-meme. 

Even in this case, Musk commented on Mishaboar’s Twitter announcement of the successful Dogecoin update with a simple but comprehensive tweet quoting: “important”.