CoinMarketCap Price Glitch

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CoinMarketCap

On December 15th, 2021, the price on CoinMarketCap glitched. As far as we can observe, there were relatively limited impacts due to this incident.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About CoinMarketCap

"CoinMarketCap is a website that tracks the price movement of cryptocurrency. Binance Capital Management, which runs cryptocurrency exchanges, acquired CoinMarketCap in April 2020." "A recent report by statistics firm HypeStat claimed that every day more than 20 lakh 70 thousand people from countries like the US, India and Japan visit the platform to price-track and stay updated on cryptocurrencies."

"Crypto market data firm CoinMarketCap experienced a glitch in pricing data for approximately two hours on Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. Bitcoin shot to $850B, while Ethereum supposedly hit $179B. This sent traders reeling headfirst into utopia. Many believed they were crypto trillionaires. CoinMarketCap burst their bubble by announcing that a glitch had occurred in its price calculation engine due to the high volume of users on the platform."

"Binance Coin was listed at more than $2B, with its actual price at around $527. Shiba Inu’s price shot up to $22,026. Its actual price was around $0.000034." "Bitcoin hit $850 billion this past Tuesday while Ether popped to $179 billion per token. The prices weren’t real, of course. But they highlight how vulnerable crypto data providers and exchanges are to glitches and hacks."

"Whether the mistake was due to a security breach or simply a software bug is unclear." "It was an error in the display of the price. Coinbase’s non-tradeable asset data was affected, and assets in Coinbase Wallet were affected."

"Twitter user @michaeljknowles tweeted that he appeared to have $7.7B worth of Ethereum in his Coinbase Wallet and decided to sell, despite the $1.2 miner fee. He only received $48.05."

“A drastic volume of users...caused huge pressure in our servers and impacted our price calculation engine,” CoinMarketCap said in an email to Barron’s, adding that the issue was quickly fixed.

"CoinMarketCap’s website announced at approximately 21:36 UTC that the engineering was aware of the incorrect prices but worked to resolve the issue. The issue was deemed resolved at 21:39 UTC on Dec. 15, 2021. CoinMarketCap’s systems are currently all operational."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

The Reality

This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:

• When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
• Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
• How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
• Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.

What Happened

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - CoinMarketCap Price Glitch

Date	Event	Description
December 15th, 2021 2:36:00 PM MST	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

Technical Details

This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?

Total Amount Lost

No funds were lost.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

Immediate Reactions

How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?

Ultimate Outcome

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

Total Amount Recovered

There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.

What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?

Ongoing Developments

What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?

Individual Prevention Policies

No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.

Platform Prevention Policies

Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.

For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.

Regulatory Prevention Policies

No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.

For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.