Coinbase Down as Amazon Web Services Suffers Outage

Coinbase users were left struggling to log into their accounts after Amazon Web Services fell victim to a wider outage.

The disruption infuriated the exchange's customers — who complained that several transactions had failed. One wrote:

"You really are failing your customers constantly." 

Others had little sympathy for the fact that this was linked to trouble at Amazon Web Services, writing:

"Imagine if a bank told you that you couldn't access your money. Jesus Christ Coinbase, get it together — you’re worth over $60 billion."

And given how Coinbase and other exchanges have also been susceptible to downtime at times of peak demand — such as when Bitcoin's price has suddenly surged or crashed — there's widespread exasperation.

Just over an hour after sharing its initial update, Coinbase Support said its login services had fully recovered — apologizing for any inconvenience.

But with "decentralization" the big buzzword in crypto and blockchain circles, Coinbase's reliance on a centralized entity that can suffer downtime is problematic for some critics.

The Bitcoin rewards platform Lolli tweeted:

"AWS went down today. FRIENDLY REMINDER THAT BITCOIN DOESN'T GO DOWN." 

A Wider Issue

The disruption at Amazon Web Services hit headlines yesterday, and as we mentioned, it wasn't just Coinbase that was affected.

Robinhood, another trading platform, also suffered issues as a result of the glitch.

Outages extended to the likes of Disney+ and Netflix, with both streaming services struggling to load.

Amazon itself wasn't immune from disruption either, meaning that warehouse staff and delivery drivers were left struggling to process packages on one of the busiest days of the year — with Christmas just around the corner.

The tech giant will now be facing some uncomfortable questions, not least because this is the third outage of 2021.