Coinbase, the biggest US exchange, experienced a seven-hour outage on May 8, 2026 after increased temperatures in AWS Availability Zone use1-az4 in the AWS US-EAST-1 Region caused service disruptions. BTC experienced $366.83K in liquidations in the hour following the outage. Trading resumed after six hours with markets placed in 'Cancel Only' mode before full re-enabling. Coinbase lost over 35% of its trading volume in the 24 hours following, dropping to $1.2B in total activity.
AWS data center thermal event
- ▪Coinbase reported that the problems causing the May 8, 2026 outage were due to overheating in one of its AWS cloud facilities
- ▪Coinbase experienced service disruptions due to increased temperatures in AWS Availability Zone use1-az4 in the AWS US-EAST-1 Region on May 8, 2026
User liquidations during outage
- ▪BTC experienced $366.83K in liquidations in the hour following the Coinbase outage on May 8, 2026
- ▪Users reported some orders were partially filled or positions were liquidated without access to closing or selling during the Coinbase outage on May 8, 2026
Coinbase recovery timeline
- ▪Coinbase lost over 35% of its trading volume in the 24 hours following the May 8, 2026 outage, with $1.2B in total activity
- ▪Coinbase announced all markets would be placed in 'Cancel Only' mode before re-enabling trading on May 8, 2026
- ▪Coinbase was inaccessible for over five hours starting on May 8, 2026
- ▪Coinbase managed to allow limited usage mode with 'Cancel Only' orders during the May 8, 2026 outage recovery
- ▪Coinbase trading for BTC resumed after around six hours of total outages on May 8, 2026
BTC price volatility
- ▪Since the end of April 2026, BTC has mostly traded at a discount on Coinbase, with rare days of the typical Coinbase premium
- ▪BTC dipped below $80,000 on May 8, 2026 during a relatively volatile day
- ▪BTC fell to $79,333.53 as an immediate response to the Coinbase outage on May 8, 2026
- ▪Users reported BTC price disparities on Coinbase compared to other centralized exchanges during the May 8, 2026 outage
- ▪BTC trading on Coinbase has shown a lowered sentiment from US-based users since the end of April 2026
- ▪BTC makes up over a third of trading volumes on Coinbase as of May 8, 2026
Infrastructure centralization risks
- ▪The May 8, 2026 Coinbase outage revealed Coinbase may be reliant on a single physical destination for servers
- ▪Coinbase is the biggest US exchange as of May 8, 2026
- ▪The May 8, 2026 Coinbase outage showed the risks of centralization and relying on external infrastructure
Coinbase layoffs and restructuring
- ▪Coinbase reported a $394M net loss and missed earnings targets
- ▪Coinbase implemented 14% layoffs as part of a restructuring
Perspective of Crypto decentralization advocates
- ▪The May 8, 2026 Coinbase outage showed the risks of centralization and relying on external infrastructure
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