A large-scale Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage on October 20 caused widespread disruptions across multiple platforms — including major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, whose users temporarily lost access to their accounts.
AWS Outage Hits Multiple Services
According to The Economic Times, the issue originated in the US-EAST-1 region, reportedly tied to a malfunction within Amazon DynamoDB, a key AWS database service. The outage not only affected external clients but also disrupted parts of AWS’s own support systems.
Major platforms impacted include Zoom, Signal, Slack, Canva, Roblox, Reddit, Hulu, EA, and Xbox Network. The BBC further reported that the incident also affected financial institutions such as Barclays, Lloyds Bank, and Bank of Scotland.
Impact on Coinbase and Other Crypto Platforms
Users of Coinbase reported login failures and transaction delays. While the company later confirmed that access was largely restored, some transfers remained in processing due to residual network instability.
Amazon Web Services remains one of the world’s largest cloud infrastructure providers, hosting vast portions of the internet — including critical crypto infrastructure. Given this, the full scale and financial impact of the outage remain difficult to assess.
Centralization Concerns Reignited
Members of the crypto community voiced frustration, noting that many so-called decentralized platforms still rely heavily on AWS for their backend infrastructure. Projects like Infura, which power Ethereum applications, were also affected — reigniting debates around centralization risks in Web3 ecosystems.
This isn’t the first time such an incident has occurred. In April 2025, a similar AWS disruption affected trading platforms Binance and KuCoin, causing transaction delays and user access issues across multiple regions.
