Coinbase and Binance went down just as the price of Bitcoin broke through the $20,000 mark.
Only yesterday, in fact, the price of BTC reached an all-time high. This climb continued over the next few hours to $22,000.
The excitement has spilt over to the markets and exchange platforms, which have had some connection problems, as in the case of Binance and Coinbase.
Those who tried to access Coinbase received an error message. No official explanation was given by the platform, but all seems to be working properly now,
Binance users have also had problems logging into the exchange. But unlike Coinbase, Binance has communicated with its users via Twitter.
We are aware that some users may be experiencing issues when trying to access the site or the mobile app.
Rest assured our team is working on it.
Thank you for your patience and apologies for any inconvenience caused.
— Binance (@binance) December 16, 2020
The problems have affected both the app and the desktop web portal.
CZ also tweeted:
“Bitcoin just popped. Experienced some scaling issues. Should be fixed for now. Underestimated demand. Adding A LOT more servers”.
Later CZ added:
“Still some latency issues here and there. Working on it, all hands on deck.
Bitcoin goes up 5%, traffic goes up 30x”.
Coinbase and Binance down, a problem for the whole industry
It seems that the crypto space is not yet ready to support a large amount of traffic if two of the most important platforms are experiencing problems in conjunction with the record rise in the price of Bitcoin.
Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex, commented on this:
“Bitcoin soaring past $20,000 has pushed some leading platforms in the space to the limit. We need to show just how far the digital token space has come and deliver the sort of impeccable service expected in incumbent capital markets.
Exchanges can ill-afford unscheduled downtime or outages as volumes climb. Let’s all be on top of our game and our tech.”
This is precisely the difference between the traditional market and the crypto market according to Ardoino. The stock market is flawless while the crypto market still has a lot to improve.
It will have to do so quickly, given that the rising price of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general could attract ever more interest and therefore more and more traffic.
