Coinbase, the second-largest exchange in the world in terms of trading volume, experienced a major outage on May 14. At 4:19 am UTC, the exchange announced a system-wide outage that lasted for three hours. However, Coinbase was able to fully recover and resume operations by 7:34 am UTC, as stated on their status page.
While the exact cause of the outage remains unknown, Coinbase has assured users that they are actively investigating the issue. Despite their announcement that their systems are fully operational, some users are still encountering technical difficulties. This has led to skepticism among users, with some calling for a fact-check of Coinbase’s claim of complete recovery.
Coinbase currently holds a 24-hour trading volume of $2.4 billion, making it the second-largest exchange after Binance, which has a trading volume of over $18.7 billion, according to CoinMarketCap data.
The outage and withdrawal issues experienced by centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Binance can greatly impact the mainstream’s trust in the cryptocurrency industry. These exchanges are often the entry point for mainstream users looking to purchase digital assets due to their user-friendly interfaces, in contrast to decentralized exchanges (DEXs).
In comparison, DEXs have significantly lower trading volumes. On Monday, DEXs recorded a global trading volume of over $585 million, which is only a fraction of the $4.6 billion trading volume generated by centralized exchanges, according to Kaiko Research.
The incident serves as a reminder of the challenges faced by centralized exchanges and the importance of maintaining a robust and reliable infrastructure to ensure the smooth operation of the cryptocurrency market.