Bitfinex suddenly went offline for more than five hours last night, causing the crypto community to stir
Bitfinex has been offline for over five hours yesterday, with the exchange initially not confirming when it would be back to work.
As confirmed on Twitter, Bitfinex has officially stopped trading since 20:25 UTC. The status page was still online at the time and said the exchange was investigating performance degradation issues on the platform.
“The cause has been identified and we are working to restore trading activities. All funds are safe”.
The cause has been identified and we are working to restore trading activities.
All funds are safe.
We will keep everyone updated on here.
Thanks for your patience.— Bitfinex (@bitfinex) August 12, 2020
In response to the outage issue, Bitfinex CTO Paolo Ardoino has explained that the exchange had “noticed that [a] few customers were affected by a balance issue”. Trading resumed at 01:46 UTC on August 13.
Many immediate reactions to exchange shutdowns include messages about the effect traders are trying to save themselves (or at least switching platforms).
“I’m leaving this exchange for good, I can’t take this anymore,” tweeted kern_boisrond.
One of the responses to his tweet indicated that users will switch to Binance. However, the Binance US branch also unexpectedly ceased operations for a few hours on August 7.
Bitfinex has had several unplanned outages (like most exchanges). In February 2019, the exchange was offline for more than two hours at the same time the price of cryptocurrencies soared.
While Bitfinex claims that all users’ funds are safe, some said they expect the exchange to compensate them for any losses.
Read more:
- Bitfinex Exchange Lists Cardano (ADA) On 6 August
- New York’s Supreme Court Has Rejected Bitfinex And Tether’s Appeal In The Ongoing Dispute Over $850 Million In Lost Funds