Kraken, one of the world’s longest-operating cryptocurrency platforms, said on its website that it was experiencing slower than normal response times and that its application programming interface was down. Clients also reported difficulty connecting to the site, API and mobile apps.
Kraken attributed the issues to 'the very heavy traffic'. It has pointed to an unexpected surge in transaction and user volumes leading to a server outage.
Additioanlly, connectivity issues are affecting Payments using the 'Buy Crypto' tool as well as card payments via web and mobile.
“We are working to resolve the issue and will update as soon as we have more information,” Kraken updated on its status page before adding “The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented.”
Rival exchange Coinbase also suffered partial service outages on Monday, injecting further turmoil into the market where prices have already seen wild swings in recent days. The San Francisco-based platform struggled for nearly two hours to keep up with the surge of interest in bitcoin trading but finally managed to restore their normal operations.
A Gentle Reminder to Crypto Traders
Offering its apology to disgruntled customers, Coinbase blamed a sudden surge in usage as the culprit that caused a server connection failure.
The two most heavily trafficked crypto exchanges in the US are getting heat from customers who were unable to make transactions after its servers went down many times this year.
Nearly all digital currency exchanges have faced significant growing pains over the last few days as Bitcoin price is now within striking distance of its all-time high around $20,000. All of which led to unprecedented traffic that crippled the exchanges’ servers, akin to a DDoS attack.
The No.1 digital coin gained over $1,000 in just one day, topping out ahead of $17,868. The last time it was anywhere near this level was in 2017, before crypto prices crashed and went into a prolonged bear market for nearly two years.
Despite the ongoing development in crypto exchanges’ technical infrastructure and engineering staff, the latest incident reminds crypto traders that access to even major platforms may become degraded or unavailable during times of significant Volatility or volume.
