en.cryptonomist.ch
Today, Monday 14 June 2021, the famous crypto price aggregator CoinMarketCap went down.
Or, rather, it started reporting seemingly meaningless numbers.
In fact, many users started complaining about problems with both the site and especially the app.
For example, the value of USDT, which should always be around 1$, at one point today on CoinMarketCap went practically to zero, only to recover about an hour later its correct value.
The problem has not occurred on other platforms, where the value has always remained around $1.
Some users complained that the app went down and had stopped working.
CoinMarketCap down, official announcement
An initial tweet on CoinMarketCap’s official Twitter profile warned of problems on the site:
Dear CoinMarketCaptains, we are currently experiencing some technical difficulties with our website. Our engineers are right on it. 🙇♂️ 🙇♀️
In the meanwhile, check out Alexandria.
P.S. Check out the Winklevoss Twins and their $45M 'heist'! https://t.co/d9k7VbdiKE
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) June 14, 2021
About an hour later, another tweet was published warning that the problems had extended to the API, the tool used by the app:
We are experiencing some latency in the APIs and our entire engineer team is working on the issue.
Please be patient with us. 🙇 https://t.co/FENq9LOmkx
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) June 14, 2021
Another hour later CoinMarketCap let it be known that the problem had been resolved, and that they were working to try and recover historical data in order to update the holes that had formed in the meantime:
Update – We have restored latest pricing! ✌️
Working on historical data.
Brb in a jiffy. 🙇 https://t.co/zRIGpEuk4T
— CoinMarketCap (@CoinMarketCap) June 14, 2021
Unfortunately, since the problem was not a total crash of the sites and apps, but a sudden lack of data that made the calculations go haywire, both the site and the app continued to show data, but entirely incorrect.
Many users did not realize that the data was incorrect, and some of them took it as true anyway, which was very worrying as it seemed to announce a disastrous total and sudden collapse.
However, it was just a platform malfunction, which has now been completely resolved.
Since CoinMarketCap is not the only crypto price aggregator, it is advisable to consult another aggregator, such as CoinGecko, before drawing any conclusions.