CoinMarketCap Glitch ‘Sent’ BTC, ETH to Billions; Affected Coinbase, Crypto.com

 

Major crypto data aggregator CoinMarketCap (CMC) displayed eye-popping prices for almost all digital assets on Tuesday due to a glitch, making crypto owners feel like “trillionaire[s] for a couple of hours.”

“The Engineering team is aware of incorrect price information appearing on [CoinMarketCap]. We are currently investigating and will update this status when we have more information,” CMC said in a tweet around 22:00 UTC.

The issue persisted for a couple of hours and showed a single bitcoin (BTC) trading at around USD 779bn, and ethereum (ETH) at USD 9.2bn. 

It also showed Cocos-BCX, a decentralized GameFi and Metaverse platform that currently ranks 474th in terms of market capitalizatiom, in the first place on the list.

A number of crypto platforms and apps that rely on CoinMarketCap for data were affected. For one, Crypto.com App acknowledged that they are having “issues with the percentage change data,” adding that it was caused “by an issue with our data source.” The exchange has marked the incident resolved.

Other notable affected platforms included major US crypto exchange Coinbase, mobile crypto wallet Trust Wallet, and major financial news outlet Yahoo Finance, among others.

We're aware some customers are seeing inflated values for non-tradable crypto assets on https://t.co/ohqDivCZYw and Coinbase Wallet. This is a display issue only and does not impact trading.

— Coinbase Support (@CoinbaseSupport) December 14, 2021

The bug also triggered a wide range of social media reactions. While some, including CMC’s official Twitter account, made jokes about the issue, others, particularly those who had short positions, almost “got a heart attack.”

I just woke up and almost got a heart attack when I opened coin market cap. almost got me @CoinMarketCap. pic.twitter.com/cUisGvqnHY

— aesa (@aesampah) December 15, 2021

“Look coinmarketcap was just trying to teach you guys to think more epochally,” said Zhu Su, CEO of crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

I quit my job and bought a lamborghini, this ain't no laughing matter

— JP (@Jprz1321) December 14, 2021

Notably, some stated that the glitch highlights the need for reliable price oracles, which are “data feeds that connect Ethereum to off-chain, real-world information so that you can query data in your smart contracts.”

One of the most popular oracles on the Ethereum blockchain is Chainlink (LINK), a decentralized network that provides real-world data to smart contracts on the blockchain.

Meanwhile, Adam Cochran, partner at Cinneamhain Ventures, argued that a bug might have affected trading bots that use the CMC application programming interface (API), prompting last night’s brief rally.

“Kind of interesting that this rally started exactly at the same time as Coinmarketcap having a pricing bug (roughly 4:25-4:35pm ET). Wonder how many bots are using their API and just started aggro buying on “market movement,” Cochran tweeted, adding: “Wow and look at that the first 4 ticks after the bug is fixed are all red and below the trend.”

At 8:33 UTC, BTC is trading at USD 48,588, going up 2.9% in a day and down 3.9% in a week. ETH is changing hands at USD 3,901 – it’s unchanged in a day and up 2.1% in a week, per CoinGecko.

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