Crypto exchange Coinbase faced yet another technical glitch on March 4, causing some of its users to see an empty balance in their accounts. This issue, which affected a small subset of users, led to intermittent zero balances across accounts and latency across pages. While trading was not impacted, it was still a cause for concern for those affected. Coinbase acknowledged the problem at 5:36 pm UTC and assured users that their assets were safe.
After identifying the issue, Coinbase was able to implement a fix around 6:21 pm UTC, roughly three hours later. The exchange then continued to monitor the situation and announced that the problem was fully resolved by 8:29 pm UTC. Interestingly, this was not the first time Coinbase experienced such an issue. Just five days prior, on Feb. 28, users encountered a similar problem with zero balances in their accounts. The company took seven hours to resolve the issue at that time.
While Coinbase has not pinpointed the exact cause of the latest incident, it did attribute the Feb. 28 problem to increased traffic. The company acknowledged that heightened traffic levels could lead to errors in transactions and payments. Despite these technical glitches, data indicates a growing demand for the exchange’s services. On the day of the latest incident, Coinbase saw a massive $7.5 billion in trading volume, marking a 120% daily increase in trading activity.
Market Performance and Speculation
The surge in trading volume can be linked to Bitcoin’s impressive price performance. At the time of the incident, Bitcoin was valued at $67,481, just a mere $1,563 below its previous all-time high in November 2021. The cryptocurrency had experienced a 7.1% increase in price over 24 hours and a 23.6% increase over the past week. Despite speculations about the root cause of the surge in traffic, ranging from positive market sentiment to potentially nefarious activities, the issue is likely a result of unexpected spikes in traffic during a period of market rally.
While Coinbase continues to grapple with technical issues, the high demand for its services and the bullish performance of Bitcoin indicate a positive outlook for the exchange. It is crucial for Coinbase to address these recurring problems swiftly to maintain user trust and capitalize on the growing interest in cryptocurrencies.