Coinbase Resumes Operations Following Four-Hour System Outage

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As a long-time crypto investor, I’ve grown accustomed to the occasional hiccups and outages in the world of cryptocurrency. However, the recent system outage at Coinbase left me feeling frustrated and concerned. The four-hour downtime was not only an inconvenience for users but also raised questions about the reliability and security of one of the most popular crypto exchanges in the US.

Coinbase, a well-known cryptocurrency trading platform based in the US, has managed to bring its system back up after enduring a lengthy downtime of around four hours. On May 14th, Coinbase disclosed that they experienced a significant system failure which affected their functionality on both desktop and mobile interfaces.

In a recent social media update on platform X, the corporation referred to the disruption as a “company-wide service interruption,” leading to a brief inaccessibility of their offerings. The incident began around 4:15 am UTC on a Tuesday morning. Eventually, the support team posted an update on X, reporting that the services were now functioning normally once again.

Coinbase is now fully recovered. We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience.

— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) May 14, 2024

Coinbase Yet to Disclose Cause of System Outage

At first, users trying to access Coinbase’s website on computers and smartphones encountered a “503 Error: Service Temporary Overloaded” message instead.

The company announced a “system-wide disruption,” but failed to provide specific information regarding its root cause. In an update on X, their support team acknowledged that they were still investigating the cause of the outage and reassured users that their funds remained secure.

The cause of the outage remained unclear, resulting in various theories suggesting it might be due to server upkeep or an excessive workload. As mentioned in Mozilla’s developer manual, overloading is a frequent reason for such interruptions, potentially playing a role in Coinbase’s encounter with downtime.

Although Coinbase managed to reinstate the service following an interruption, they have yet to reveal the precise reason behind the outage, prompting curiosity and conjecture among users and onlookers in the industry.

Not the First

Coinbase’s latest four-hour service disruption is not an isolated occurrence for the publicly traded American cryptocurrency exchange. Previously this year, Coinbase and other crypto platforms experienced interruptions in February. These outages occurred due to a sharp increase in Bitcoin (BTC) trading volume during a flash crash, resulting in a near-10% decrease in BTC’s price before it bounced back.

In March, some Coinbase users experienced issues accessing their accounts. This problem was a short-term technical hiccup that impeded account usage for affected individuals. Some traders were dismayed to find their Coinbase balances displayed as zero during this episode.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Degen Chain experienced an extended outage lasting over 12 hours, as reported by Coinspeaker yesterday. While centralized crypto exchange users may face outages, this issue is not exclusive to them.

The outage caused a temporary limitation for users in accessing other blockchain initiatives, as well as connected bridges, associated with the given chain.

Recently, Shibarium, a secondary network built specifically for the Shiba Inu community as part of the Ethereum blockchain, experienced an unexpected interruption in its operations, leading to performance issues for SHIB tokens.

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2024-05-14 13:33