Binance and Kraken face technical issues as system traffic reaches new highs

Crypto-exchanges faced technical issues once again today, as system traffic reached all-time highs.

CZ, CEO of Binance, took to Twitter to address connectivity issues on the platform, stating that all funds are SAFU. Binance also faced up to two-minute delays for account/trade data when queried from the API.

All time high on system traffic again. In fact, 3 ATHs in the last 15 minutes. Some isolated latencies observed, monitoring.

Funds are #SAFU!

— CZ ? Binance (@cz_binance) February 4, 2021

While the system issues were cleared shortly after, Binance wasn’t the only crypto-exchange that experienced API related connectivity issues.

U.S based crypto-exchange Kraken too received reports from clients that were having difficulty connecting to the site and Rest API. “The issue appears to be connected to very heavy traffic.”, stated the digital asset exchange on their website.

Following the issue, Kraken temporarily disabled sign-ins and sign-ups, citing “extremely high demand” as the root cause. At the time of writing, a fix had been implemented on both the exchanges that have since resumed normal function.

Historically, crypto exchanges have experienced system overload issues, following periods of sharp surges in price. With ETH hitting new levels, surging past $1600 and BTC trading above $37,600 once more, the crypto markets witnessed above-average trading volumes.

Google searches for 'Buy Crypto' have exploded to a new all time high, while 'Buy #Bitcoin' searches are still relatively low pic.twitter.com/Wzj7lx629v

— Bloqport (@Bloqport) February 4, 2021

Some of this may have been driven by new retail investors, as retail interest in crypto rose sharply over the past few weeks. This is further evidenced by the fact that Google searches for ‘Buy Crypto’  too reached a new all-time high, even surpassing the trends observed during the 2017 bull run.