Crypto exchange Coinbase experienced a brief outage Wednesday afternoon, with both its website and API rendered temporarily inaccessible, as the price of bitcoin dropped more than $1,700 in the span of 15 minutes.
According to Coinbase’s status page, the exchange reported major outages across its website, mobile apps and API, though its internal systems appeared to be functional during that period. When reached, a spokesperson told CoinDesk: “We’re back up.” At 5:17 ET, the exchange’s status page noted: “A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results.”
According to its website, trading app Robinhood also reported issues with its crypto trading service.
The platform was rendered inaccessible on mobile and desktop browsers around 20:45 UTC. Bitcoin’s price, which saw a high of nearly $13,900 on Wednesday, fell over the past hour, dropping as low as $11,900. BTC’s price was at about $13,685 just prior to the fall, hitting $11,908.11 before bouncing back upwards — a difference of roughly $1,785. Despite recovering back above $12,000, the price is currently hovering at roughly $11,920 as of the time of publication.
According to data BitMex, nearly $250 million in volume traded hands in a 5-minute period surrounding the initial price drop, with nearly $690 million in volume trading across 15 minutes after the drop began across its XBT/USD perpetual swap contract market.
Bitcoin’s price has been on a tear across the last week, coming close to 18-month highs above $13,000 earlier in the day. The price was hovering around $9,000 one week ago.
Coinbase image via CoinDesk screenshot