When Big Tech Sneezes, Crypto Catches a Cold
Amazon's AWS Outage Causes Widespread Disruptions
The internet faced significant challenges on Monday due to issues with Amazon's cloud service, AWS. This outage affected numerous online platforms, including major players like Coinbase and Robinhood.
Impact on Coinbase and Robinhood
- Coinbase reported that their services were back up, but some old transactions remained stuck.
- Robinhood acknowledged issues due to AWS and promised a swift resolution. However, the extent of the remaining problems is unclear.
User Reports and Outage Tracking
Thousands of users reported problems with both Coinbase and Robinhood, as tracked by outage monitoring websites. This incident highlights the ongoing reliance of crypto services on big tech companies, despite the goal of creating a decentralized internet.
Historical Context
This is not the first time AWS issues have caused such disruptions. In April, similar problems affected Binance and Kucoin, with Binance even halting withdrawals temporarily.
Current Status of AWS
AWS confirmed that their data center in Virginia was still experiencing problems but noted early signs of recovery.
The Path to Decentralization
The vision of a decentralized internet aims to reduce dependency on single, large companies. However, the recent outage underscores the current reliance of many crypto services on these tech giants, illustrating the progress still needed to achieve true decentralization.