Following yesterday’s sudden, short-term bitcoin spike, Coinbase – one of the largest and most popular crypto exchanges in the United States – experienced an outage that prevented customers from taking advantage of the volatility.
Coinbase Experiences Another Outage, and People Aren’t Too Happy
This seems to be a pattern with the trading platform as of late. Every time bitcoin spikes to $10K or experiences solid jumps very quickly, the exchange seems to stop working. The last time this occurred was the day before the halving on May 11, also when the currency briefly hit the $10K mark. There is something about that range that just doesn’t sit well with the trading platform, but what is it?
On the one hand, it’s very odd that a company with the size, scope, and power of Coinbase comes to a halt every time the currency it represents incurs a little spike. We use the term “little” without misgivings considering that $10K isn’t much higher than the $9,500 it was at before. Today, bitcoin is trading back at that price.
At the same time, these sudden jumps and falls that bitcoin incurs doesn’t just affect Coinbase, but rather several crypto trading exchanges. For one reason or another, the asset seems to have control over many companies that deal in or with it.
Coinbase’s sudden power outage was also experienced by BitMEX just a few weeks ago. Based in Seychelles on the continent of Africa, BitMEX is widely regarded as one of the region’s primary trading platforms, but its recent stint has given people a lot of second thoughts. BitMEX has been labeled a “bitcoin casino” several times over the years. Outages have also occurred in the past, and many began pointing their fingers at the exchange, claiming it was not reliable and that it was a foolish arena to store one’s bitcoin stash.
Despite a relatively solid reputation, Coinbase is receiving much of the same backlash. On Twitter, for example, one user under the name “Crypto Capital Venture” asked the exchange the following question:
Dear Coinbase, I ask this with much respect – how does an exchange with an $8 billion valuation crash every time bitcoin pumps five percent? I genuinely would like to know.
The good news is that the latest move by the exchange isn’t affecting people’s ideas of bitcoin, and many analysts are still bullish about where it will go in the coming weeks and months. Katie Stockton – managing partner at Fairfield Strategies – explained that bitcoin is still in solid shape, and that the crypto market is likely to remain bullish for the time being.
Things Will Still Be Well for BTC
She explained:
$10,055 is a retracement level that is the last major hurdle to the high from 2019 near $13,850.