Coinbase Outage from AWS Data Center Overheating

Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, experienced a major service disruption lasting more than two hours on May 8, 2026, after an overheating incident at an Amazon Web Services data center in Northern Virginia halted trading for many users.

The outage affected Coinbase's web and mobile platforms, leaving some customers unable to execute trades or access full functionality, while others faced degraded performance. Coinbase placed its markets in cancel-only mode, allowing users to remove existing orders but not place new ones, as a precautionary step before resuming trading. The exchange later transitioned to auction mode to stabilize order books and prevent volatility upon reopening. Coinbase officials confirmed customer funds remained safe throughout the incident and directed users to the AWS service health dashboard for updates.

The root cause traced to elevated temperatures in AWS's USEAST1 region, specifically availability zone use1az4. AWS reported a related power loss that impaired hardware, prompting the company to divert traffic from the affected zone. In a status update, AWS stated it observed early signs of recovery after deploying additional cooling capacity to...