Coinbase glitch shows $0 balances again amid soaring bitcoin prices and trading volume

Quick Take

  • Coinbase said on Monday that it’s trading platform was having problems including showing some customers had $0 balances.
  • The U.S.-based exchange said its team is “investigating” the issue and that trading has not been impacted.

Coinbase's trading platform is once again experiencing problems amid heavy trading in crypto, including showing some customers their account balance was $0.

"We are aware some users may experience increased latency ... and a few users may see intermittent zero balance," Coinbase said in a post to X. "Rest assured, your funds are safe. Our team is investigating this issue and will provide an update. Trading is not impacted at this time."

Less than a week ago, the U.S.-based exchange reported that a heavy load of traffic had caused the same technical glitch to occur. At the time, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong took to X to explain what had happened. "We had modeled a ~10x surge in traffic and load tested it. This exceeded that number. It's expensive to keep services over-provisioned, but we'll need to keep working on auto-scaling solutions, and killing any remaining bottlenecks."

As with last week, Coinbase's platform is experiencing issues as the price of bitcoin heads towards a new all-time high amid heavy trading volumes. Bitcoin was changing hands at $66,617 as of 2:00 p.m ET on Monday, according to The Block Price Page.

Price of bitcoin and trading volume. Image: The Block Price Page.

Less than an hour after Coinbase initially reported its technical issues, the exchange offered an update with another post to X. "We're beginning to see improvements in latencies and completed transfers. Rest assured your funds are safe."

Besides occupying the position as the most popular U.S. cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase also serves as the institutional custodian for most of the spot bitcoin ETFs currently trading, including the product offered by BlackRock.

 


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About Author

RT Watson is a senior reporter at The Block who covers a wide array of topics including U.S.-based companies, blockchain gaming and NFTs. Formerly covered entertainment at The Wall Street Journal, where he wrote about Disney, Netflix, Warner Bros. and the creator economy while focusing primarily on technological disruption across media. Previous to that he covered corporate, economic and political news in Brazil while at Bloomberg. RT has interviewed a diverse cast of characters including CEOs, media moguls, top influencers, politicians, blue-collar workers, drug traffickers and convicted criminals. Holds a master's degree in Digital Sociology.

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