Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange based in the United States, has experienced a complete system failure, rendering its services inaccessible for users on both desktop and mobile platforms.
The outage was officially announced by Coinbase on its status page, with the company notifying users that a major outage occurred at 4:15 am UTC on May 14.
Currently, attempting to access the website will display a “503 Service Temporarily Unavailable” error message. According to a developer guide from Mozilla, this error message is commonly seen when servers are either undergoing maintenance or are overloaded.
Coinbase Support, through its official account, posted on May 14 that they were investigating the issue and working towards a solution. They reassured users that their funds are secure.
This is not the first time Coinbase has faced temporary outages. On February 28, the exchange, along with several others, experienced similar issues due to a sudden increase in cryptocurrency trading during a Bitcoin flash crash. During this event, the price of Bitcoin dropped by nearly 10% before quickly recovering.
While these outages can be frustrating for users, some members of the crypto community view them as positive events. They argue that the high traffic causing extended periods of downtime ultimately benefits the crypto industry.
Crypto trader Castillo Trading, with a following of 73,000 on social media platform X, humorously celebrated the Coinbase outage in a post on May 14, stating, “Coinbase down. We are so back.”
In conclusion, Coinbase’s recent system-wide outage has disrupted its services, but the company is actively working to resolve the issue. Despite the inconvenience, some in the crypto community find these outages to be a positive sign for the industry.