Bitcoin’s rally is turning out to be bad news for Coinbase, the cryptocurrency trading app that just confirmed that some of its customers are seeing zero balances in their Coinbase accounts. “Your assets are safe,” the company assured app users via a status page on its websiteadding that its team is investigating the issue and will update soon. [Update: The company has since said the issues are improving but the app is seeing “heightened traffic.”]
The app crash today has to do with the recent demand for Bitcoin, the popular cryptocurrency that recently soared to $60,000 — near an all-time high last seen in 2021. Bitcoin price surged in the wake of US spot bitcoin ETFs, leading to a 42% price rally this month. According Reutersthis was the biggest monthly gain the digital asset had seen since December 2020. At the time of writing, Bitcoin climbed above $61,448, or up 7.66% today.
The spike has fueled renewed interest in apps like Coinbase, which allows users to buy, sell and hold crypto products in a digital wallet. This rapid increase in demand, including from more casual crypto investors, appears to have contributed to the app’s current problems, as Coinbase says the app is experiencing problems from high traffic.
Users of the Coinbase app were alarmed on Wednesday as they logged in to find zero balances in their accounts despite owning crypto assets.
Meanwhile, the company’s technical support channel on X (formerly Twitter) was still responding to users with a set of standard troubleshooting steps, instead of acknowledging that the problem is on Coinbase’s side – a now all-too-common problem with automated customer support accounts that seem disconnected from the ups and downs of the larger organization. The company has just now started telling users that it is aware of the problem and is working to fix the problem quickly.
Coinbase’s own Status page was first updated at 9:40 am PST to acknowledge that it is looking into the matter.
“We are aware that some users may see zero balance in their Coinbase accounts and may experience errors when buying or selling,” the company wrote in a new post on X. “Our team is investigating and will update soon. Your assets are safe.”
The issue comes at a bad time for Coinbase, when several more casual investors have returned to the crypto trading market only to find they have seemingly no assets.
Noticed by a user on X, who shared a zero balance image“My mom called and asked me and mine was at zero too,” they said.
At 10:44 am PST, Coinbase also noted that some users were experiencing increased latency in the Help Center as well, leading to longer than normal wait times or an inability to open a new support chat.
Coinbase updated again at 11:29 PST to indicate that “customer transactions are beginning to improve.” Here, the company comments that “increased traffic” is to blame, as a result of which some customers are still seeing errors in connections, shipments, pickups and some payment methods.
At 12:15 p.m. PST, Coinbase said customer connectivity has been restored and shipments are improving. It also sees an improvement in transactions on the platform, but some customers may still see errors due to “increased traffic.”
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