In Brief:
- The glitch happened in mid-November when Coinbase users were able to purchase GYEN.
- Coinbase claimed it is a technical issue and disabled trading for GYEN.
- Coinbase will write a blog post detailing the November 19 occurrence involving GYEN and POWR assets in the coming weeks.
Users of the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase have started an online campaign requesting that the firm refund their losses after a technical issue caused the company to suspend accounts for weeks, resulting in substantial damages for many users.
According to the CNBC report, the problem happened in mid-November when users on Coinbase were able to purchase GYEN, a stablecoin pegged to the value of one Japanese yen.
POWR, a cryptocurrency developed for energy trading, was also embroiled in the mishap.
According to Chainalysis, the crypto analysis business, GYEN was listed on Coinbase for the first time on November 10.
Around November 17, the coin became unattached from the yen price it was meant to be aiming for. The token’s value soared to 0.065643, and that’s 7.5 times greater than the currency equivalent investors expected.
Transfer activity to Coinbase surged beginning Nov. 18 and peaked the next day at $122 million, Chainalysis reported.
Transfer activity from Coinbase, on the other hand, peaked on Nov. 20, according to the firm, with that day’s volume constituting 84 percent of total transfers.
It’s unclear how many clients were affected, how many lost money, and how many were able to profit on the price surge and sell before it plummeted again.
Coinbase user Chris Flemming has initiated an online petition named “Accountability for COINBASE GYEN account freeze” that has already received 1,650 signatures.
The petition states, “We as a whole recognize that mistakes happen and there is the potential for loss when investing in any cryptocurrency or asset. Though in this case, the losses came from internal technical errors of Coinbase.”
As stated in the report, Coinbase sent an email to a few users which stated, “between 15th – 19th November 2021, GYEN on Coinbase experienced unexpected behavior due to unusual market conditions. On 19th November, this was further complicated and for technical reasons, Coinbase disabled trading for GYEN.”
The email further states, “For customers trading with GYEN up until 19 November, this may have resulted in decimal display issues for transactions (displaying 100x greater than or less than what was actually purchased or traded based on the exchange rate confirmed at the time), while the wallet balance accurately reflected the amount traded.”
In another mail, to a user, the crypto exchange stated, “all buys, sells, trades, sends, and receives of GYEN and POWR have been temporarily disabled on Coinbase.com and Coinbase Pro while we work to correct this. We apologize for this – we know this is a significant inconvenience and we’re working as quickly as possible to correct this to ensure that customers impacted can access funds as soon as possible.”
Coinbase will write a blog post detailing the November 19 occurrence involving GYEN and POWR assets in the following weeks, according to CNBC.
Cryptocurrency exchanges experiencing glitches have become common nowadays, as last month Binance also experienced the same. Binance temporarily halted Dogecoin withdrawals due to a glitch that happened during the version upgrade. A few Binance users posted claimed that the platform ordered them to refund DOGE to the exchange or their withdrawal capability will be disabled. However, the users who were affected stated they didn’t have any DOGE in their Binance accounts to return.
