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Bitcoin Price Slumps Following Bitfinex Outage
The price of bitcoin slumped again today after Bitfinex closed its order book, citing issues with its post-trade processing.
By Grace Caffyn
Updated Mar 6, 2023, 2:54 p.m. Published Aug 24, 2015, 5:45 p.m.
The price of bitcoin slumped again today after Bitfinex closed its order book, citing issues with its post-trade processing.
The Hong Kong-based exchange, which witnessed a 'flash crash' just last week, halted trading for a seven-hour period this morning. The Bitfinex price promptly fell a further 3.8% when it reopened at 12:31pm UTC.
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In a statement on Reddit, Zane Tackett, Bitfinex's director of community and product development, said:
"Earlier today, at 5:27 UTC, we encountered an issue with post-trade processing, upon which we decided to halt trading to ensure consistency in the order book."
Users were given a 15-minute window to cancel their orders before trading restarted. Many expressed frustration with the beta service, which has been plagued by technical glitches that Bitfinex's Phil Potter attributed to its transition to AlphaPoint software.
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According to Bitcoinity data, the exchange handled 22,400 trades today, down from 81,500 this time last week. Since the flash crash, it has been shunted to the fourth most popular exchange, succeeded by Huobi and BTC China.
Last week's flash crash at Bitfinex saw the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index fall 14% to a four-month low of $214.03. At press time, it remains $30 below pre-flash crash levels.
Besides Bitfinex, a bitcoin market maker told CoinDesk the slump could also be due to the uncertainty around Bitcoin XT – the contentious client aiming to 'fork' bitcoin. He said:
"Brittle markets as evidenced by Bitfinex's downtime today, coupled with overhang from the block size debate, mean a lot of people don't want to be the last ones to be able to sell."
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Exchange Review - March 2025
CoinDesk Data's monthly Exchange Review captures the key developments within the cryptocurrency exchange market. The report includes analyses that relate to exchange volumes, crypto derivatives trading, market segmentation by fees, fiat trading, and more.
What to know:
Trading activity softened in March as market uncertainty grew amid escalating tariff tensions between the U.S. and global trading partners. Centralized exchanges recorded their lowest combined trading volume since October, declining 6.24% to $6.79tn. This marked the third consecutive monthly decline across both market segments, with spot trading volume falling 14.1% to $1.98tn and derivatives trading slipping 2.56% to $4.81tn.
- Trading Volumes Decline for Third Consecutive Month: Combined spot and derivatives trading volume on centralized exchanges fell by 6.24% to $6.79tn in March 2025, reaching the lowest level since October. Both spot and derivatives markets recorded their third consecutive monthly decline, falling 14.1% and 2.56% to $1.98tn and $4.81tn respectively.
- Institutional Crypto Trading Volume on CME Falls 23.5%: In March, total derivatives trading volume on the CME exchange fell by 23.5% to $175bn, the lowest monthly volume since October 2024. CME's market share among derivatives exchanges dropped from 4.63% to 3.64%, suggesting declining institutional interest amid current macroeconomic conditions.
- Bybit Spot Market Share Slides in March: Spot trading volume on Bybit fell by 52.1% to $81.1bn in March, coinciding with decreased trading activity following the hack of the exchange's cold wallets in February. Bybit's spot market share dropped from 7.35% to 4.10%, its lowest since July 2023.
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