Coinbase crashed as Bitcoin soared to record high

Angry Coinbase users slammed the cryptocurrency trading app after it crashed again on Tuesday (Mar.5), the same day Bitcoin hit a new all-time high price of $69,000 after over two years of waiting.

At 3:44pm ET, Coinbase posted on Twitter: “We are aware that some users may be experiencing errors when transacting. Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update shortly. Your assets are safe.”

We are aware that some users may be experiencing errors when transacting. Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update shortly. Your assets are safe.

— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) March 5, 2024

The outage comes just six days after a previous incident where customers of the world’s second biggest crypto exchange reported seeing a zero balance in their accounts, despite Bitcoin spiking in value on February 28th.

This time around, as Bitcoin soared to a record high of $69,200 around 10am ET on Tuesday, surpassing its previous peak from November 2021, many traders were left unable to buy or sell.

Is Coinbase down?

Frustrated Coinbase users voiced their anger on X. One customer wrote: “We can’t buy and we can’t sell and my accounts not being credited sales that went through.”

Coinbase responded to another user’s complaint: “We understand that this is not an ideal experience. Although we don’t have an estimated time to resolution, rest assured that our team is working on getting everything back to normal as soon as possible.”

At 4:27pm ET, Coinbase provided an update stating: “We are seeing recovery in customer transactions. Advanced Trade API users may see increased throttling while we experience increased trade volume.” However, reports of continuing issues persisted after that.

Customer transactions have fully recovered, we will continue to monitor activity. Advanced Trade API users may continue to see increased throttling while we experience increased trade volume. https://t.co/dOWxljnSvX

— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) March 5, 2024

After initially climbing, Bitcoin’s price tumbled, hitting a low of $60,793 in the early afternoon before recovering somewhat to trade around $62,780 at 3:30pm ET, still down nearly 7% from its highs.

The launch of spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the United States is widely seen as the catalyst that fueled the latest cryptocurrency bull run, with institutional investor demand and money flows into these funds exceeding even the most optimistic projections.

Featured image: Ideogram