Here’s how Cloudflare’s recent outage disrupted access to several crypto websites and social media platforms.
A major Cloudflare outage erupted on Tuesday and disrupted access to several crypto websites and social media platforms.
Users reported issues with Coinbase, Blockchain.com and X after Cloudflare announced an “internal service degradation.”
The outage pointed out the risks of relying on centralised network infrastructure for the internet.
Cloudflare Outage Hits Crypto Platforms
Many users could not access popular crypto platforms during the incident. Websites affected included Coinbase, Blockchain.com, Ledger, BitMEX, Toncoin, Arbiscan and DefiLlama.
Some platforms like Kraken restored services faster than others, while others like BlueSky and Reddit remained mostly unaffected.
For context, Cloudflare provides network and security services for millions of websites.
Its systems help to make sure of smooth operations. It also monitors traffic, and protects against attacks. On Tuesday, the company reported the outage around 11:48 am UTC.
The disruption lasted for several hours before Cloudflare implemented a fix.
Technical Cause of the Outage
Cloudflare confirmed that the problem stemmed from a configuration file that manages threat traffic.
This file automatically grows in size as traffic increases. On Tuesday, it grew above its expected limits and caused the software handling several services to crash.
A spokesperson clarified that the outage was not linked to a hack. The crash temporarily degraded services, including some encrypted connections like Warp in London.
Cloudflare later restored dashboards and front-end access but users could still experienced intermittent errors while the system recovered.
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Impact on Websites and Users
Thousands of reports flooded DownDetector after 11 am London time. Sites including X, OpenAI, ChatGPT, Spotify and Letterboxd faced disruptions. Multiplayer games like League of Legends and even public sites like the Scottish Parliament website were affected.
Some affected sites returned online temporarily but later faced repeated errors.
Users often saw messages about internal server errors tied to Cloudflare. Platforms relying heavily on Cloudflare’s services were particularly exposed to the outage.
More than 10,000 DownDetector users reported problems during the peak of the incident. Cloudflare had to temporarily disable certain services for UK users while fixing the issue.
Shopify, Dropbox, Moody’s credit ratings service and Coinbase were among the high-profile platforms impacted.
Cloudflare’s Response
Cloudflare implemented a fix by 2:48 pm London time. The company said it believes the incident was resolved but continues monitoring for errors.
Customers were warned that some services might experience higher-than-normal error rates while the system stabilizes.
The company apologised to users and promised to learn from the incident.
Cloudflare explained that services will fully return to normal after the traffic spike settles. It noted that no evidence indicates that the outage was caused by a cyber-attack.
Lessons from the Outage
The outage shows the reliance of websites on a few major network providers.
When one provider fails, it can affect thousands of platforms at the same time. Less than a month ago, Amazon Web Services experienced a similar disruption that affected multiple websites globally.
Experts note that centralised infrastructure can create single points of failure.
Even systems designed for redundancy, like Cloudflare, are vulnerable if one internal process malfunctions.