- Binance, KuCoin, and MEXC have experienced short-term outages caused by the AWS problem.
- Binance briefly had a stop on withdrawals while trading was temporarily affected on KuCoin and MEXC.
- AWS resolved the issue within 36 minutes, and normal trading activities were returned to all the affected exchanges.
Crypto exchange Binance temporarily halted user withdrawals on Tuesday following a network disruption linked to Amazon Web Services (AWS). The outage was experienced in AWS’s Tokyo region, creating issues on several crypto platforms such as KuCoin and MEXC.
Binance briefly halted withdrawal services for around 23 minutes as it complained that its user security had been compromised. The exchange made the announcement through the X platform before proceeding to restore services. In response, a Binance representative said that the outage was temporary and intended to help avoid failed transactions during the AWS downtime.
AWS said that the problem started at 1:15 a.m. PDT (0815 GMT) and was fixed at 1:51 am PDT (0851 GMT). The company stated that the services have since resumed normal use.
KuCoin and MEXC Users Experience Technical Glitches
KuCoin also posted similar problems of temporary trading platform disturbances. The exchange blamed the outage on a problem experienced in the AWS data center in Tokyo. Kucoin assured the customer that their assets remained safe in spite of the disruptions.
“Our technical team is urgently working on a fix, and the recovery time will be announced separately,” KuCoin stated. The exchange stated that it was working in tandem with AWS to ensure all the issues were fixed and rectified in full.
Similarly, another crypto exchange, MEXC, informed its users of potential trading concerns. The exchange highlighted problems such as abnormal candlestick patterns, inability to cancel placed orders, and slow asset transfer when it comes to the spot trading segment.
MEXC has come out to affirm to its users that all their assets are safe. Also, the exchange assured investors that they would implement a plan to compensate for the losses that resulted from the platform-related issues.
Other exchanges included in the list were Coinstore, Gate.io, DeBank, Rabby Wallet, and Weex. At least eight platforms reported outages by 9:30 am UTC, all of which were attributed to the AWS event.
Overreliance on Centralized Cloud Draws Criticism
The most recent AWS incident once again raised awareness of the industry’s reliance on central service providers. AWS hosts infrastructure for major exchanges such as Coinbase, Crypto.com, BitMEX, Huobi, and Kraken. Although its services are characterized by scale and low latency, the critics think the service is exposed to risks due to centralization.
“AWS down and 90% of crypto is down. Decentralization is a meme,” wrote Edmund Chua, head of mETH Protocol, in a pointed remark shared on X.
Bitget CEO Gracy Chen also agreed, citing that although such incidents as AWS outages could present issues, there is no reason to panic. However, she noted that the discussion should focus on decentralized cloud infrastructure in the future. Chen said the event should make the crypto sector reconsider using centralized hosting services.
Online backlash followed quickly, with users asking why Binance and other major exchanges continue to rely on AWS to host their operations instead of having their own infrastructure.
