Coinbase investigating system outage as crypto prices slide

(May 14): Coinbase Global Inc, the largest US crypto exchange, is experiencing a system outage.

The company notified users on its website at 12.19pm Malaysia time on Tuesday (May 14), assuring them that their funds were safe. Over two hours later, Coinbase said in an update that it is “seeing some services recover” but is still working on fixing the issue, adding that customers may still experience “connectivity problems”.

Crypto prices have fallen since the outage began. Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, was trading at US$61,975 (RM292,346.04) as of 3.11pm in Malaysia on Tuesday, down 1.8% on the day, while Ether was down about 1.4% to trade at US$2,913.

Coinbase’s website indicated that the outage had interrupted trading on the exchange’s website and mobile app. Exchanges are central components of the digital asset world, yet they’ve frequently gone down over the years when traffic on blockchain networks gets too high or other technical issues arise.

The exchange also suffered technical issues in March that caused some users’ accounts to show a balance of zero. That glitch coincided with a rally that saw the price of Bitcoin rise to record levels a few weeks later.

A spokesperson for Coinbase directed Bloomberg to a post on X regarding the status of the exchange.

Shares of Coinbase were little changed in pre-market trading. The stock has risen around 15% so far this year.