Markets

Trading goes down at Coinbase, one of the biggest bitcoin marketplaces, for two hours amid price plunge

Key Points
  • Coinbase said at 11:11 a.m. ET that "all buys and sells have been temporarily disabled," but the issue was resolved as of 1:44 p.m., according to the company's status website.
  • The interruption in service comes as bitcoin briefly tumbled below $11,000, down 44 percent from its record high hit Sunday.
  • On Thursday, Coinbase had temporarily disabled buys and sells at 5:57 p.m. ET, according to its status website. The issue was resolved within 15 minutes.
Trading temporarily goes down at Coinbase
VIDEO0:3700:37
Trading temporarily goes down at Coinbase

Coinbase, one of the biggest bitcoin marketplaces in the U.S., said Friday that trading was up again after being down for more than two hours amid a price rout in cryptocurrencies.

"Buys and sells have been re-enabled. We are monitoring for stability," Coinbase said on its status website as of 1:44 p.m., ET.

Earlier, the company said that buying and selling was temporarily disabled and that the service "may be temporarily offline" due to high traffic.

Bitcoin traded about 14 percent lower near $13,283 on Coinbase as of 2:22 p.m. ET. Earlier, the digital currency had fallen as low as $10,400, down 44 percent from its record high hit Sunday.

Coinbase's GDAX exchange for institutional investors saw about $1 billion in bitcoin-U.S. dollar trading volume over the last 24 hours, according to CryptoCompare. Only Hong Kong-based Bitfinex had greater trading volume for the currency pair at around $2 billion, the website showed.

Coinbase, whose mobile app is one of the most popular overall applications in the Apple App store this month, is a leading way in the U.S. to buy and sell major digital currencies bitcoin, ethereum and litecoin. The company added trading for bitcoin's offshoot bitcoin cash in a rocky rollout this week.

Coinbase suspends trading after bitcoin prices crash
VIDEO0:3900:39
Coinbase suspends trading after bitcoin prices crash

On Thursday, Coinbase had temporarily disabled trading at 5:57 p.m. ET, according to its status website. The issue was resolved within 15 minutes.

Coinbase has struggled in recent months to keep up with high demand. On Dec. 12, the company temporarily suspended buys and sells of ethereum twice in one day.

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Trading temporarily goes down at Coinbase
VIDEO0:3700:37
Trading temporarily goes down at Coinbase