Key Takeaway
What triggered the exchange outages?
A massive wave of sell-offs and liquidations, over $9.5 billion in 24 hours, overwhelmed major trading platforms.
How bad was the market crash?
Bitcoin and Ethereum fell by nearly 7% and 12%, respectively, while major altcoins like Cardano and Dogecoin plunged by more than 20%.
Major crypto exchanges — Binance, Coinbase, and Robinhood — experienced system slowdowns as an intense sell-off swept across digital assets. The sell-off triggered more than $9.5 billion in liquidations within hours.
Heavy volatility brings exchanges to a standstill
The outages began as Bitcoin and Ethereum led a market-wide decline. This led to traders rushing to manage positions amid one of the sharpest intraday drops of the year.
The surge in trading volume overwhelmed exchange infrastructure, causing delays, errors, and intermittent service interruptions across multiple platforms.
Binance confirmed that its systems were “under high load due to heavy market activity,” adding that “some users may experience intermittent delays or display issues.” Coinbase issued a similar notice, stating that users might experience “latency or degraded performance,” while assuring them that their funds remain secure.
Source: X
Robinhood also faced user complaints of trade delays and unresponsive charts during the sell-off. However, it has yet to release an official statement.
Market meltdown: billions wiped out in hours
According to Coinglass data, over $8 billion in long positions were liquidated compared to $1.5 billion in shorts, as leveraged traders bore the brunt of the sudden downturn.
A TradingView heatmap showed red across nearly every major token. Bitcoin dropped 6.88%, Ethereum fell 11.91%, while Solana, XRP, and BNB recorded double-digit declines. Altcoins were hit even harder — Cardano plunged 23.7%, and Dogecoin dropped 22.7%, underscoring how deep the correction ran.
Source: TradingView
The sharp correction is attributed to a confluence of macro pressures — including renewed U.S.–China trade tensions, risk-off sentiment in equities, and heavy profit-taking following recent ETF optimism.
Trader frustration spills online
Retail traders vented online as exchanges froze during the crash. One user wrote, “Not letting retail buy low. LOL. You lot are a disgrace. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
While such accusations are common during volatile periods, centralized exchanges remain prone to high-load stress events, even with modern scaling systems.
