Coinbase, MetaMask, OpenSea… A bug at AWS puts the crypto industry on hold

A major outage of Amazon Web Services paralyzed the main crypto platforms on Monday, revealing once again the paradoxical dependence of a sector that advocates decentralization. From MetaMask to Coinbase through Base and OpenSea, malfunctions multiplied throughout the day.

A centralized infrastructure weakens the crypto promise

The outage began early Monday morning, abruptly revealing the flaws of a sector nonetheless built on the promise of resilience. Users of MetaMask, one of the most widely used decentralized wallets in the world, were shocked to discover balances showing zero.

No, their funds had not disappeared: the issue came from Infura, the service that connects decentralized applications to blockchains. However, this provider depends directly on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to extract real-time data.

Deprived of this infrastructure, applications found themselves cut off from access to the Ethereum, Base, Polygon, Optimism, Arbitrum, Linea and Scroll networks. A disturbing observation: even tools praising decentralization still rely on centralized actors to operate.

The Base network, developed by Coinbase and presented as a fast and scalable solution, also faltered. After a brief lull in the afternoon, problems re-emerged: high latencies, synchronization errors, inconsistencies in block production. For a network meant to symbolize the modernity and robustness of Web3, the setback is severe.

As for Coinbase, Base’s parent company, it struggled to restore all its services. Several hours after the outage began, many users remained unable to trade or transfer their assets. This situation was all the more embarrassing as Robinhood, affected by the same AWS failure, had already resumed normal operation.

The paradox of decentralization revealed in broad daylight

OpenSea, the leading NFT marketplace, was not spared by the storm. Its CTO, Chris Maddern, explained that despite a “functioning appearance” of the site, several upstream providers continued to encounter major difficulties. 

Result: sporadic interruptions, an abnormally high error rate and a greatly degraded user experience. Maddern also warned that these disruptions could persist for several hours before a full return to normal.

This crisis highlights a central question: how can a sector founded on decentralization depend so much on a single cloud infrastructure provider? 

The AWS incident revealed a worrying structural fragility, exacerbated by the geographical concentration of servers. Users on the US East Coast were among the most affected.

Ironically, this widespread outage also had a positive side effect: a dramatic drop in Ethereum transaction fees. With activity sharply down, gas fees fell below 0.1 gwei, according to Etherscan data—a historically low level, equivalent to less than a tenth of the previous day’s rate and under 1% of the average costs seen in recent months. But beyond this technical pause, the message is clear: crypto still has a long way to go before realizing its ambitions of resilience and independence.

As long as the ecosystem relies on centralized giants like Amazon, it will remain exposed to this type of systemic vulnerabilities. The irony was not lost on observers, who noted the hypocrisy of a sector championing decentralization while depending on the shoulders of a single centralized actor.