Assets Secure Despite Coinbase Outage, Exchange Confirms

The outrageous Bitcoin surge over the past week has set the crypto market into overdrive. While most investors are gleefully counting their stacks as they tell all their non-believing friends “I told you so”, the overwhelming interest hasn’t all been good news. Over at Brian Armstrong’s Coinbase, the increased levels of traffic have caused a pretty major issue affecting accounts across the world.

It’s not a fun time when you log into an account, expecting to see hundreds (or hundreds of thousands) of dollars, only to find a big fat zero. The first thing that no doubt comes to mind is “hack!”, or “scam!”. This is exactly the thought process that ran through the heads of millions of Coinbase users last night, as a 10x jump in investor traffic caused a mass outage.

It’s no wonder that investors were getting a little edgy when seeing their accounts supposedly drained. After the disaster of FTX, where billions of dollars worth of customer money was misappropriated and lost, the market isn’t exactly trusting of big-name crypto exchanges. Luckily in this instance, the problem was a simple server issue, rather than an actual loss of funds. Coinbase was quick to assure everyone that everyone’s money was still there, and it was just a problem on the application’s side.

But the platform’s reputation will no doubt take a short-term hit from the event. As one customer put it on X (formerly Twitter) – “My profits aren’t safe if I can’t sell”. 

While the issue was quickly resolved without any major incident, the lack of liquidity itself presented a potential opportunity cost for thousands of investors. It’s yet another reminder of the age-old crypto adage: “Not your keys, not your coins”. Self-custody of crypto assets is always something worth considering, no matter what your financial goals may be.