Customers of Coinbase were terrified Wednesday after discovering that their e-wallets had been unintentionally wiped away, only to learn that their cash were secure and that the cryptocurrency exchange platform had crashed.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong attempted to assuage concerns as customers crowded social media, blaming the crash on a “large surge in demand” as Bitcoin surpassed $60,000 for the first time in two years.
“I had $3.6 million in Coinbase and now it’s showing $0,” prominent crypto-trading celebrity Ash Crypto wrote to X, attaching a screenshot of his total amount on the exchange that read “$0.00.”
Coinbase acknowledged the incident in an X post, saying: “We know that some users may see a zero balance across their Coinbase accounts and may encounter errors when buying or selling.” Our staff is looking into this and will provide details shortly.”
The platform promised clients, “Your assets are safe,” and released a statement on its website so traders could monitor the status of the breakdown.
Armstrong told Bitcoin Magazine that a “large surge of traffic” when users attempted to buy, sell, or trade Bitcoin on Wednesday, when its price temporarily soared to $64,000, strained the exchange’s system.
Coinbase claimed around two hours later that it was “beginning to see growth in customer trade,” but cautioned that due to the platform’s persistently high traffic levels, “a few customers may still see errors in login, sends out, receives, and with some payment options.””
“Rest assured, your funds are secure,” Coinbase stated in its most recent statement on the occurrence.
Following the interruption, Bitcoin fell dramatically from its $64,000 high – the first time since November 2021 that the crypto coin broke $60,000 — to around $59,500, knocking out most of the coin’s profits on Wednesday and approximately $100 billion off its market capitalization.
At the time of written form, Bitcoin’s sturdy price was marginally higher, at $61,174.20. When the Post asked Coinbase for comment, a spokeswoman pointed to the company’s most recent report on the meltdown, which stated that trading was gradually recovering.
Coinbase was founded in 2012 and is the leading cryptocurrency exchange site in the United States in terms of trading volume.
Besides Bitcoin, the most prominent and expensive currency of its kind, Coinbase allows traders to access other digital currencies on decentralized blockchains like Ethereum, Solana, and Dogecoin, among others.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allowed the first-ever US-listed traded fund to track Bitcoin this past week, ushering in a new era for the crypto industry by providing institutional and ordinary investors with access to the currency while directly owning it.
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