Coinbase Global, Inc. has restored its trading services following a significant outage that prevented clients from executing trades on its platform for nearly seven hours on Friday, compounding operational difficulties during an already challenging week for the cryptocurrency exchange. The New York-based company stated the disruption was caused by overheating at an Amazon Web Services data center in Northern Virginia, which impacted systems used by Coinbase and led to a temporary suspension of all trading activity. The issue was first reported by Coinbase around 9 a.m. Singapore time on Friday, with normal operations resuming around 4 p.m.

The outage occurred at a sensitive time for the company, affecting core trading functions. According to user reports on social media, some customers were unable to trade, transfer assets, or access standard trading services. A Coinbase spokesperson noted that the retail customer application also experienced degraded performance. For investors, the timing may heighten scrutiny over Coinbase's reliance on third-party cloud infrastructure, particularly as this AWS disruption follows a major outage in October by the Amazon-owned service provider that affected thousands of websites globally.

This service failure comes just days after Coinbase announced deep workforce reductions, impacting approximately 14% of its roughly 5,000 employees. This move is part of a plan to shift remaining staff toward artificial intelligence-related skills and reduce management layers. Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong stated on Tuesday, "Non-technical teams are now delivering production code, and many of our workflows are being automated," framing the layoffs within a broader push to change how the business operates. The pressures extend further: Coinbase reported on Thursday that first-quarter revenue fell 31% to $1.41 billion, missing expectations, while posting a net loss of $394 million. Coinbase shares fell about 3% in premarket trading on Friday and are down roughly 15% year-to-date.