A major outage at Amazon Web Services (AWS) disrupted operations across multiple centralised crypto exchanges (CEXs) on April 15, leaving users unable to access services on platforms like Binance, KuCoin, and MEXC. The incident highlighted the sector’s dependency on centralised infrastructure providers.
According to AWS’ status page, at least 12 services experienced “connectivity issues,” with the company posting updates that recovery was underway:
“We are seeing initial signs of recovery but continue to monitor and work toward full recovery… We will provide another update within the next 30-60 minutes,” AWS said in an official note.
Binance, KuCoin, MEXC Among the First to Report Issues
Binance was quick to notify users about service disruptions, citing a “temporary network interruption” from the AWS data center.
“Some orders are still successful, but some are failing. If users failed, they may keep retrying,” Binance said in an X post.
A Binance spokesperson later confirmed that services, including withdrawals, had been fully restored with support from AWS technical teams.
KuCoin also flagged the issue publicly:
“Due to a large-scale network outage with AWS services, our platform is currently experiencing temporary disruptions,” the exchange wrote on X.
MEXC users faced issues with candlestick chart displays, failed order cancellations, and delayed asset transfers. However, the exchange assured that “users’ assets remain fully secure.”
Impact Spread Across Several Exchanges and Wallets
By 9:30 am UTC, at least eight platforms had confirmed AWS-related problems. These included Coinstore, Gate.io, Rabby Wallet, Weex, and DeBank. Most reported full recovery by 1:50 pm UTC, except DeBank, which was still working on restoring full functionality.
A Centralized Single Point of Failure?
AWS is widely used in the crypto industry for its high-performance cloud infrastructure, enabling low-latency trading and high-volume operations. Coinbase, Crypto.com, BitMEX, Huobi, and Kraken are among the major platforms leveraging AWS services.
The disruption has reignited concerns about the overreliance on centralised infrastructure providers and the potential domino effect a single point of failure can trigger.
“AWS down, and 90% of crypto is down. Decentralisation is a meme,” wrote Edmund Chua, head of mETH Protocol.
Gracy Chen, CEO of Bitget, also weighed in:
“AWS data centre issues impacted several CEXs — no need to panic… but maybe it’s time to explore decentralised cloud services.”
Calls Grow for Decentralized Cloud Alternatives
The outage has fueled calls for the adoption of decentralised infrastructure in crypto. Some of the highlighted alternatives include:
- Filecoin for decentralized storage
- Akash Network for compute services
- Render Network for GPU-powered decentralized computing
