FTX Stems as Crypto Markets Tank Over CPI Figures

by Arthur · September 13, 2022

Most traders point to FTX’s API connection
Market volatility has a history of overloading crypto exchanges

When markets are volatile, crypto traders spit like a husky after the dinner bell. If their exchange of picks experiences downtime just when they’re itching to make a trade, Twitter is a great place to vent.

After the release of higher-than-expected U.S. inflation numbers on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, markets took a dive. Bitcoin, for example, fell 6% over the next 25 minutes.

FTX customers started complaining about API violations and periodic screen updates.

“FTX down again? Time for a new browser,” one user wrote, referring to earlier interactions with FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, where he suggested laggy browsers were to blame.

This time, Bankman-Fried put on her customer service hat and went into action.

haha

sorry about that – FTX didn’t actually go down, but the website auto-refreshed for a lot of people, which was pretty frustrating, and released a fix for that momentarily

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) 13 September 2022

“…I’m internally frustrated that we didn’t make this particular thing smoother earlier, I’ve half woken up [developer] team to get things rolled out within an hour,” Bankman-Fried tweeted.

Some users reported that they were unable to use the platform for around a minute or to receive false alerts of jurisdiction-based blocks.

Crypto exchanges have a history of struggling during brief periods of high demand, sometimes even spurring legal action as upset traders band together to seek compensation.

A spokesperson for FTX confirmed to Blockworks that the technical issue was related to the increase in volatility, but did not characterize it as an outage.

“There was no downtime, the switchboard was running all the time. Some users who accessed it through their browser found that their website was being updated frequently, making using the exchange slower and more cumbersome, the spokesperson said.

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Macaulay Peterson

Macauley was an editor and content creator in the professional chess world for 14 years before joining Blockworks. At Bucerius Law School (Master in Law and Business, 2020) he researched stable coins, decentralized finance and central banks’ digital currencies. He also holds an MA in Film Studies; film credits include associate producer of the 2016 Netflix documentary “Magnus” about world chess champion Magnus Carlsen. He is based in Germany. Contact Macauley by email at [email protected] or on Twitter @yeluacaM