Crypto Exchange FTX Freezes Under Strain of CPI Volatility

Cryptocurrency exchange FTX was unusable for some customers Tuesday amid a closely watched economic report on U.S. inflation, prompting a flurry of frustration from traders.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried confirmed that the exchange faced issues, stating that the "website did wonky auto-refreshing for a lot of people."

Traders on Twitter reported that the FTX interface was intermittently freezing at 12:30 UTC, which is when the U.S. consumer price index (CPI) report was released. Bankman-Fried responded and said that the issue had been fixed as of 13:25 UTC.

"The resulting CPI volatility caused some users who were accessing the exchange via browser found that their webpage frequently refreshed, which made using it slower and more cumbersome," a FTX spokesperson told CoinDesk in a statement. "There was no downtime as a result of the volatility and the exchange remained running the entire time."

"This was the only significant issue with FTX during the time, and only affected the website, not the API," said the person.

The price of bitcoin slumped from $22,700 to $21,400 after the CPI report showing inflation rose by 8.3% in August from a year earlier, exceeding expectations of 8.1%.

The volatility caused more than $110 million in liquidations in a one-hour period across crypto derivatives exchanges, according to Coinglass.