FTX CEO SBF Disagrees With Server Downtime Amid August CPI Release

Crypto exchange FTX’s CEO Sam Bankman-Fried disagrees with any downtime in the crypto exchange during the August CPI data release. However, many traders reported that the FTX server was down as they were facing difficulty placing their trades.

“FTX Didn’t Actually Go Down”- FTX CEO SBF

After the August CPI data announcement, the total crypto market cap plummeted by over 5%. The Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) prices tumbled over 5% and 8% respectively as the CPI comes at 8.3% vs 8.1% expected. However, U.S. inflation has dropped to 8.3% from 8.5% in July and 9.1% in June.

As a result of the volatility in the crypto prices after the CPI release, many traders reported that the FTX crypto exchange is down as they face difficulty placing their orders. Traders were frustrated as the downtime prevented them from making changes to their trades. According to Coinglass, over $150 million in positions were liquidated in an hour.

However, FTX CEO SBF in a tweet pointed out that there was no downtime with the exchange, but the website auto-refreshed continuously for many traders. Also, the team is working to fix the issue.

“Sorry about that — FTX didn’t actually go down but the website did wonky auto-refreshing for a lot of people which was pretty frustrating, rolling out a fix for that momentarily.”

Meanwhile, FatMan, from the Terra research forum, attacked SBF for lying on the issue. He believes it was not a website or front-end bug, but the actual server wasn’t accepting orders. The “ExchangeNotAvailable” error was disclosed by FatMan.

“Can crypto companies please stop lying to their customers for PR & marketing? Yes, you too, Binance, you know what you did with UST.”

FTX recorded 12k trades in a minute, which might have caused the issue. Interestingly, it is the highest number of trades in 5 minutes in the last 4 months.

Crypto Market Falls After the CPI Release

The crypto market corrected sharply after the August CPI release. Bitcoin price has dropped from $22,673 to $21,011. Moreover, the Ethereum price falls to its psychological level of $1500.

Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs expect a 75 bps rate hike in September and 50 bps rate hikes in November and December.