Major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said that the platform was beginning to function normally after experiencing a technical glitch, causing users to see zero balances on their accounts.
The issue has been attributed to an increase in traffic after the price of Bitcoin briefly touched around $64,000 before retracing.
Zero Balances on Coinbase
Earlier on Feb. 28, several Coinbase customers received an unpleasant surprise after logging into the app and seeing their account balances showing zero funds. The issue caused some panic and confusion, with some believing that there was a hack and their funds were stolen.
I had $3.6 Million on Coinbase
and now it’s shows $0 lol
WTF IS HAPPENING ? pic.twitter.com/BaV4pWjFo6
— Ash Crypto (@Ashcryptoreal) February 28, 2024
However, Coinbase responded to the issue, stating that user funds were safe. According to company CEO Brian Armstrong on X, the outage the app was facing was a result of a “large surge of traffic.”
In a series of status updates on the Coinbase website, the company acknowledged the zero balance issue, adding that there were also problems with buying and selling. The exchange further reported improvement in customer trading, although it stated that increased traffic may still cause “error in receives and some payment methods” for some customers.
The latest update, posted at 13:05 Pacific Standard Time (PST), said, “We are starting to see Coinbase.com activity normalizing. We will continue to monitor our systems and provide updates.”
Meanwhile, Armstrong, in a follow-up tweet, said the Coinbase app was “recovering” while stating that the company tested a “10x surge in traffic” but noted that the current situation exceeded the exchange’s expectations.
Apps are now recovering.
We had modeled a ~10x surge in traffic and load tested it. This exceeded that number.
It’s expensive to keep services over-provisioned, but we’ll need to keep working on auto-scaling solutions, and killing any remaining bottlenecks. Thank you for… https://t.co/JXVppV57AF
— Brian Armstrong 🛡️ (@brian_armstrong) February 28, 2024
The recent trading frenzy comes after Bitcoin’s (BTC) price skyrocketed to nearly $64,000, reaching its highest level since the asset’s peak price in November 2021. However, Bitcoin has slightly dropped, and it’s currently trading at over $61,000.
Not a First Time
While Coinbase’s app operations seem to be getting back to normal, the crypto community did not fail to point out that the platform always experienced an outage whenever there was a pump in Bitcoin price, which is a time some traders would try to sell their assets to get profit.
Apart from Coinbase, other major cryptocurrency exchanges like Binance have also been known to face technical issues amid a market surge.
Meanwhile, with the upcoming Bitcoin halving event likely to happen in April 2024, along with other factors, there have been some recent bullish sentiments regarding the largest crypto asset by market capitalization. Some analysts, investors, and traders have dropped price predictions for BTC, which go as high as $21 million per Bitcoin.
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