[HN Gopher] Kraken Is Down
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Kraken Is Down
        
       Author : frabjoused
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2021-01-07 18:58 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (status.kraken.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (status.kraken.com)
        
       | frabjoused wrote:
       | As trades are frozen, there is now a 10+% price difference
       | between the last trade and the current market. It's going to be
       | interesting when it comes back online.
        
         | pjc50 wrote:
         | .. wow, I wasn't expecting this to be zooming upwards. I
         | suppose chaos is good news for the price.
        
       | Duckton wrote:
       | Coinbase is also down, but that's hardly a surprise
        
       | massaman wrote:
       | What's Kraken?
        
         | thebean11 wrote:
         | Cryptocurrency exchange, first result on Google
        
           | acdha wrote:
           | Don't forget that Google personalizes your search rankings.
           | Not everyone will see the same results you see.
        
             | thebean11 wrote:
             | DuckDuckGo gives me the same thing (I think that avoids
             | personalization right?)
        
               | varajelle wrote:
               | Google might also personalize his results.
        
               | acdha wrote:
               | I'm sure they and the rum vendor spend a lot of money on
               | SEO, too, so it'll fluctuate over time. My point was
               | mostly that the snark wasn't helpful and if you wanted to
               | contribute something of value you could have suggested
               | searching for the domain name which is more accurate.
        
               | thebean11 wrote:
               | I figured the original comment was snark, since it seems
               | so trivial to answer the question oneself..
        
               | twentydollars wrote:
               | It was a joke, like "What's cracking?"
        
               | genera1 wrote:
               | I'd wager that DDG results are skewed towards tech, since
               | it's mostly tech people who use it.
        
               | lackbeard wrote:
               | That's interesting because I use DDG by default but I
               | find it terrible for tech searches. I wind up using it
               | for everything _except_ tech stuff.
        
           | dxdm wrote:
           | I like it when somebody asked in comments here and there is
           | an answer already, saving me and probably a bunch more people
           | the some seconds of time.
        
             | exolymph wrote:
             | I like it when instead of asking, someone Googles on their
             | own behalf, and then shares the answer because they realize
             | that others may also be curious.
             | 
             | The requests for spoonfeeding are always irritating.
        
               | twentydollars wrote:
               | It was a pun on "What's cracking?"
        
         | jcranmer wrote:
         | I've been the following the election litigation stuff so much
         | my first thought was that this was about the frivolous suits
         | being filed to overturn Biden's elections. Although I was
         | completely at a loss to think what it might be talking about in
         | that regard, since every Kraken lawsuit has been lost at this
         | point and there's no likelihood that any of the pending appeals
         | will go anywhere.
        
         | choeger wrote:
         | I have no idea. But I heard it would be released this winter.
        
       | myth_drannon wrote:
       | Quadriga still up?
        
       | andy_ppp wrote:
       | Hmmm - where are the scaling issues with building a Bitcoin
       | exchange!? Am I mad to think it's trivially scalable?
        
         | martinko wrote:
         | Yes, you are mad to think that. You literally have 400k users
         | trying to execute trades in parallel (some many per second) on
         | a common order book. Add leverage, a liquidation engine, etc.
        
           | andy_ppp wrote:
           | I think my conceptual problem here is what is done on the
           | Bitcoin part and what is done at the exchange level. I
           | thought the Bitcoin network handled that part and obviously
           | I'm wrong about that.
        
         | flyingfences wrote:
         | Scaling with satisfactory security is never trivial.
        
       | darth_avocado wrote:
       | At what point does this border a scam? You can't sell when it
       | matters the most. This isn't the first time. And this isn't the
       | only one down.
        
         | mandelbrotwurst wrote:
         | There have similar issues with Merrill Lynch recently.
        
           | thebean11 wrote:
           | I've had issues accessing Schwab too on days the market
           | tanks.
        
         | superfrank wrote:
         | Aren't they a crypto exchange and, similar to Coinbase, make
         | their money on fees? If so, being down, especially when prices
         | are soaring, hurts. If people cannot trade on their platform,
         | they're not getting any fees.
         | 
         | It sounds like a pretty dumb scam if you as me.
        
           | qeternity wrote:
           | You're missing the forest for the trees. If crypto crashes,
           | and retail goes away permanently, they lose their entire
           | business. These are 100% planned circuit breakers by the
           | exchanges to halt panic selling.
        
             | varajelle wrote:
             | In the past, Mtgox being offline caused crashes, not
             | prevented them. And that was at the time when it was the
             | major bitcoin exchange.
        
             | gruez wrote:
             | This only works if _all_ the major exchanges go down. Is
             | there any evidence of this conspiracy?
        
           | ur-whale wrote:
           | You're assuming their not trading themselves.
           | 
           | And before you mention it: yes, that'd likely be illegal
           | under US law, but still, it's a scenario.
        
             | [deleted]
        
         | traskjd wrote:
         | I'd guess at the same time we accept the stock market is a scam
         | when it shuts down when trading goes full crazy? Helps prevent
         | runs on them?
        
           | juniperplant wrote:
           | > Helps prevent runs on them?
           | 
           | Sorry for my ignorance, but what do you mean by this? I have
           | zero knowledge about the stock market.
        
             | rstupek wrote:
             | He's likely talking about trading circuit breakers which
             | trigger when the market is down a substantial percentage in
             | a short time. Trading is suspended for a period
        
               | mirekrusin wrote:
               | With COVID it happened twice iirc - the stock market has
               | been automatically stopped to prevent panic runs.
        
             | wyck wrote:
             | Online trading platforms also go down...just like crypto
             | exchanges. The tech stack has to be incredibly resilient
             | and fast, several steps above most software in terms of
             | performance and reliability.
        
         | gruez wrote:
         | How is this a scam? Kraken makes money on trading fees. How is
         | it in their interest to shut down when volume is high?
        
           | qeternity wrote:
           | See my above comment. They are playing the long game.
        
       | abhiminator wrote:
       | Posted this last time and posting this again as a PSA:
       | 
       | A bit of a side-note, but this needs to be said: articles like
       | these should be a good wake-up call for crypto users that are
       | still using web-based wallets (and their accompanying apps for
       | mobile platforms) especially for storing LARGE amounts of
       | cryptocurrency -- you're essentially trusting a third-party
       | exchange (with many of them using opaque ToS and PP) with your
       | private keys and as a result your funds (especially those
       | platforms that don't use multi-sig architecture). And crypto
       | exchanges' data breaches/hacks is getting more common by the day.
       | [0] Even Bitcoin.org has stopped recommending web-based wallets,
       | like they were doing just a couple of years ago.
       | 
       | The best alternative is hardware wallets, but a good middle-
       | ground is using self-managed, 'semi-cold' software wallets like
       | Electrum, Armory, etc. [1][2]
       | 
       | [0] https://selfkey.org/list-of-cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/
       | 
       | [1] https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/wallets/online/
       | 
       | [2] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1741339.0
        
         | bombcar wrote:
         | Of course managing your own wallet leads to other risks,
         | potentially more likely ones - the cries of those who forgot
         | passwords or lost their bitcoin drive have been heard far and
         | wide.
        
           | qertoip wrote:
           | Hence, all modern advice pushes towards easy hardware wallets
           | with an UX-enforced physical paper backup.
        
         | bondarchuk wrote:
         | You make an argument against trusting exchanges but your
         | proposed alternative is trusting the hardware wallet company.
        
         | sawmurai wrote:
         | Yeah I lost quite some coins on bitgrail :) gone ... with the
         | wind ...
        
         | RealityVoid wrote:
         | This is a common claim in crypto circles, but my experience
         | rings the other way. Sure, some crypto exchanges have fallen,
         | but there have been many many people that stored their funds on
         | their own, improperly, and lost them. I had a friend that kept
         | the keys in plaintext in google drive and lost them.
         | 
         | IMO, the average user has weak opsec and is safer to keep
         | crypto on exchanges. Get a good reliable one and use 2FA and
         | you should be fine.
         | 
         | I did pretty much all options. Kept the cryptocurrency on paper
         | wallets, multiple exchanges and now on a HW wallet( I use a
         | Trezor) but I don't advise this for all.
        
           | qertoip wrote:
           | You are 100% incorrect. Not your keys, not your coins. Any
           | meaningful amount of Bitcoin out to be stored on a hardware
           | wallet.
           | 
           | If user can't be bothered to learn anything or read anything
           | or accept months-pending Windows update, he should __not
           | __touch cryptocurrency.
           | 
           | So, for the "average user", the answer is __not __storing on
           | an online exchange, but to never touch cryptocurrency in the
           | first place.
        
             | [deleted]
        
             | Spivak wrote:
             | I really don't see why crypto will end up different than
             | the banking sector in the long run when it comes to this.
             | They're still my dollars even if Bank of America
             | technically has possession of them.
             | 
             | Nobody argues that the only safe place to keep your money
             | is in a safe in your basement, what's up with the crypto
             | world where the advice is reversed?
        
               | RealityVoid wrote:
               | IMO, this comes from the origins of bitcoin, they were
               | used and developed by a bunch of cypherpunks and privacy
               | enthusiasts. For them, key handing is paramount! They
               | then created this mythos and sets of advice that were
               | handed down.
               | 
               | But it can be used wither way. What matters is the
               | freedom to chose.
        
             | RealityVoid wrote:
             | > You are 100% incorrect. Not your keys, not your coins.
             | 
             | Yes, I know the theory but saying this 10000x times does
             | not change the fact that for some use cases, it might be
             | the wrong decision. I feel the crypto community is WAY too
             | dogmatic about this.
             | 
             | The beauty of the way cripto is working is that it can be
             | both ways. You can control your keys as much or as little
             | as you want.
             | 
             | If things were the way you say, crypto would not be what it
             | is today. Simply wishing that things were this way or say
             | that they're "using it wrong" feels silly to me.
        
             | nesky wrote:
             | Do you have any preference towards a Ledger, Trezor or
             | other?
        
               | thebean11 wrote:
               | I believe Trezor is fully open source, while Ledger is
               | not. Both obviously have a good track record though, and
               | have been around for a while. Personally I feel safer
               | with the Trezor, I think the biggest risk to these things
               | is that the key generating algo or hardware is flawed and
               | the key is guessable, which seems less likely for an open
               | source device with many eyes on it.
        
         | SilasX wrote:
         | Define "large". What's a good rule of thumb for "too much to
         | have on an exchange" and why that figure?
        
       | seibelj wrote:
       | Poloniex still running strong!
        
         | flyGuyOnTheSly wrote:
         | The local highschool running track was fine when the Boston
         | Marathon was bombed, too.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-01-07 23:02 UTC)