BTC/USD: Bitcoin Nearly Retakes $64K After Coinbase Glitch Stripped $100B Off BTC Value

Zero balances on Coinbase spooked crypto buyers, leading to a massive retreat. The glitch washed out 8% of BTC’s price in 15 minutes.

• A wild rush for Bitcoin BTCUSD swept financial markets on Wednesday and caused the largest US exchange to crash and start throwing errors. Bitcoin went ballistic yesterday, gaining 13% to hit $64,000 a pop as traders and investors scrambled to get in on the action and turn a profit. FOMO—fear of missing out—kicked in like the good old days of 2021 when crypto was all the talk in town.
• In the span of around 15 minutes, right in the middle of the bonanza, Bitcoin changed its mind and erased 8%, or $100 billion of its market cap, to crash to $59,000. Turns out, flocking traffic had swamped Coinbase COIN, leading to a breakdown in operations. Worse, its systems were thrown out of whack and started showing $0 balances in error. The exchange later posted an update saying statuses were normalizing.
• All those issues appear in the rearview mirror on Thursday. The orange coin is back on its grind and working hard to tackle the $64,000 milestone. In the earlier deals today, BTC hit an intraday high of $63,700 per coin. This price level is less than 8% away from the top coin’s record high of $69,000. Dealmaking from large players is fueling the action with investors pouring billions into the recently launched spot Bitcoin ETFs.