Top Crypto Exchanges Experience Difficulties as Tesla News Prompts Trading Frenzy

Some of the biggest cryptocurrency exchanges were experiencing technical issues Monday after Tesla’s announcement of a $1.5 billion bitcoin investment saw prices rally to new highs over $44,000.

• According to status pages and tweets for Binance, Coinbase, Gemini and Kraken the platforms have experienced difficulties on web and mobile following a surge in bandwidth demand from traders.
• Binance disabled withdrawals for a short period, but, at press time, the exchange said these are once more functional.
• The issues come amid a spike in market activity after Tesla said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it has invested $1.5 billion in bitcoin and “may acquire and hold digital assets from time to time or long term.”
• As the news quickly spread, bitcoin prices quickly rose around 15% to a new all-time high of $44,801.87, per CoinDesk 20 data. At press time, the cryptocurrency was trading around $43,640.

Read more: Tesla Invests $1.5B in Bitcoin, Plans to Accept Crypto Payments