FOMO seizure - the cracks are already starting to show...

[gentlemand]

A couple of days of excitement and then this happens.



To be fair, or just as unimpressed, they've been having problems with this when it was quiet too.

But it does make me wonder about how desperate it's going to become if there's another proper bubble. Last time it nearly finished off even the biggest operations and I've seen little mention of them making plans if it happens again.

There's no time to recruit and train enough people as it occurs and I doubt anyone would be willing to employ vast numbers on the off chance there's a few weeks of madness again.

A future bubble would be way more muscular and the millions of people who boned themselves up the posterior on the last one would be very fast to jump back in, let alone new arrivals.

Do you reckon the exchanges have secret fire power hidden away or are they going to wilt until the whole thing keels over?

With 2x the excitement it would be a massive undertaking to handle, 5-10x and your computer might vomit into your lap when you try to log in to an exchange.

[Daemon_Hell]

There's no time to recruit and train enough people as it occurs and I doubt anyone would be willing to employ vast numbers on the off chance there's a few weeks of madness again.
Do you reckon the exchanges have secret fire power hidden away or are they going to wilt until the whole thing keels over?

It would be nice to know if the staff recruited during 2017-2018 madness is still around.
I believe a lot of operations were forced to let people go.

[gentlemand]

It would be nice to know if the staff recruited during 2017-2018 madness is still around.
I believe a lot of operations were forced to let people go.

There weren't enough during it, after that the profits fell so rapidly that anyone they did get in is likely not to have stayed.

There've been plenty of reports of the bigger exchanges and companies laying people off, but they reframe it as a 'consolidation' and of course quite a few exchanges have disappeared completely.

[AdolfinWolf]

I'm not sure. I think that the problem this time won't necessarily be software, (I remember at the height of Poloniex where there were entire hours where only bots could trade through API calls..), but rather support staff to handle tickets.

As you said, after the burst most of these people probably got laid off, and now with a sudden increase in interest, it's probably going to take some time for exchange to decide whether or not they need to rehire some of these people, or not. It seems to me that Binance & Bitmex have really "upgraded" their systems to prevent lag et al, (so far anyhow).

Which will most likely be pretty visible in the response times for support tickets & KYC verification. I'm not sure how it is nowadays on most exchanges, (such as binance), but especially tickets were extremely hard to get an answer on on Bittrex/Polo.

But who knows, maybe this is just a suckers rally for all the "HODLERS" who bought in @ 5 digits to unload their dogshit unto the bitcoin price, and crash it within a matter of days. We'll see.

[gentlemand]

I'm not sure. I think that the problem this time won't necessarily be software, (I remember at the height of Poloniex where there were entire hours where only bots could trade through API calls..), but rather support staff to handle tickets.

As you said, after the burst most of these people probably got laid off, and now with a sudden increase in interest, it's probably going to take some time for exchange to decide whether or not they need to rehire some of these people, or not. It seems to me that Binance & Bitmex have really "upgraded" their systems to prevent lag et al, (so far anyhow).

Which will most likely be pretty visible in the response times for support tickets & KYC verification. I'm not sure how it is nowadays on most exchanges, (such as binance), but especially tickets were extremely hard to get an answer on on Bittrex/Polo.

But who knows, maybe this is just a suckers rally for all the "HODLERS" who bought in @ 5 digits to unload their dogshit unto the bitcoin price, and crash it within a matter of days. We'll see.

I'm certainly not expecting this to be it, which is what makes it all the more disheartening. This is a couple of days of excitement, which'll probably fade as quick as it came, and the company above is reporting too much of a load, though I suspect they're fundamentally a bit shit.

If in future there's several months of ever increasing heat again it's going to look dire going on the odd hint we can pick up like this.

I think it's always been more staff and the demands on their time rather than software, though that's often been an issue too.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Price isn't the important factor for how well exchanges handle the load - it's volume. The price of bitcoin could hit $1 million or $100, but if no one is trading then exchanges will cope just fine.

If we look at the total market volume* over the last few days, it is the highest it has ever been. Total market 24 hour volume has been sitting around $85 billion for the last few days. At the ATH back in 2017, it only peaked at $72 billion, and was generally sitting around $45 billion.


*This is of course with the massive caveat that a lot of reported volume is completely fake, and we have no idea of knowing the true market volume either now or back in 2017.

[LeGaulois]

Look like the problem comes directly from one of their partners. which makes the problem even more complicated
because you can't do anything, other than to wait for the partner to fix the problem, either because your infrastructure is too large or something else.
Which can also mean you just have to start looking for a new partner. And it often ends  like this when you need to be pro active.

[Daemon_Hell]

Price isn't the important factor for how well exchanges handle the load - it's volume. The price of bitcoin could hit $1 million or $100, but if no one is trading then exchanges will cope just fine.

If we look at the total market volume* over the last few days, it is the highest it has ever been. Total market 24 hour volume has been sitting around $85 billion for the last few days. At the ATH back in 2017, it only peaked at $72 billion, and was generally sitting around $45 billion.


*This is of course with the massive caveat that a lot of reported volume is completely fake, and we have no idea of knowing the true market volume either now or back in 2017.

Well, this is a self-sustainable process. The higher price is - more news about it, more engagement from the users - higher volume.
(And if we're talking real exchange load - it's not even a volume, but amount of orders/deals)

[figmentofmyass]

But it does make me wonder about how desperate it's going to become if there's another proper bubble. Last time it nearly finished off even the biggest operations and I've seen little mention of them making plans if it happens again.

i recall both coinbase and kraken rebuilding their engines to handle much bigger scale in response to the 2017 outages. that's definitely a good thing for USA residents because there aren't many legit fiat gateways. there's gemini too but they have high fees and disappointing volume.

their new engines haven't been put to the test yet re another bubble like 2017 though. so we'll see!

on the customer service side, one would hope these exchanges have learned their lesson after the endless ticket queues of 2017, but it's probably hard to time these cycles right. they're either bleeding payroll during low volume periods or unprepared for the hype season.

[gentlemand]

but it's probably hard to time these cycles right. they're either bleeding payroll during low volume periods or unprepared for the hype season.

Until the whole thing levels off if it ever becomes truly vast I don't see how this circle can be squared. Even if they could afford it I doubt anyone would bother keeping a thousand people hanging around playing ping pong on the off chance a bubble arrives, nor should they be expected to.

I guess all a regular person can do is sort their verification rubbish during quiet periods and hope there isn't a problem during the busy ones.

[Daemon_Hell]

i recall both coinbase and kraken rebuilding their engines to handle much bigger scale in response to the 2017 outages. that's definitely a good thing for USA residents because there aren't many legit fiat gateways. there's gemini too but they have high fees and disappointing volume.

their new engines haven't been put to the test yet re another bubble like 2017 though. so we'll see!

Well, I've waited for a long time for a new Kraken engine, but when they've rolled it out - it was a complete disappointment.
If you look at https://status.kraken.com/ - you can clearly see that API response time NEVER falls below 600 ms.
I believe this is unacceptable in the modern market (and for exchange which has been around for a while and secured some serious funding)
On a positive note - during the current active market - response time did not skyrocket as it did before (up to a couple of seconds)

[dothebeats]

For sure, there will be instances of crashes and unresponsiveness on several exchanges in the event of yet another bull run. We've seen it happened in 2017 when several notable exchanges 'crashed' or were unable to process orders/transactions at the height of the price. I'm sure several exchanges have already taken a step up in their game for potential crashes that can happen in the midst of a heated trading action, and wisely so, because they are not the ones losing profit but those who trade within their platforms.

[magneto]

To be fair, or just as unimpressed, they've been having problems with this when it was quiet too.

But it does make me wonder about how desperate it's going to become if there's another proper bubble. Last time it nearly finished off even the biggest operations and I've seen little mention of them making plans if it happens again.

There's no time to recruit and train enough people as it occurs and I doubt anyone would be willing to employ vast numbers on the off chance there's a few weeks of madness again.

A future bubble would be way more muscular and the millions of people who boned themselves up the posterior on the last one would be very fast to jump back in, let alone new arrivals.

Do you reckon the exchanges have secret fire power hidden away or are they going to wilt until the whole thing keels over?

With 2x the excitement it would be a massive undertaking to handle, 5-10x and your computer might vomit into your lap when you try to log in to an exchange.

I certainly do hope that they've prepared themselves better for it this time.  It should be common sense that customer demand and load on the service will be at an all time high in a bull market, when market activity is booming. They have the duty to ensure that the quality of service doesn't deteriorate as bull markets emerge, especially when it concerns the funds of customers.

But from an exchange's perspective, it's certainly no easy task to call up temporary employees just for the same of responding to a short term boom in demand, and then laying them off as the bear market approaches.

I guess all a regular person can do is sort their verification rubbish during quiet periods and hope there isn't a problem during the busy ones.

That's a good idea, though you're likely not going to be able to tackle the other issues that come with heightened demand, like slow support times, and website lags. There is really nothing you can do, but to pick an exchange/service that is at least somewhat reputable for their work ethic.

On a side note, it also seemed like that in 2017, exchanges like Coinbase were more focused on developing new products rather than resolving existing issues with overflooding of their support system.