- Cloudflare outage halts crypto exchanges, DeFi platforms, and top websites.
- Centralized internet layers create systemic failure risks across industries.
- Multi-cloud reliance exposes transaction chains to potential breakdowns.
Only a few weeks after its last outage, Cloudflare faced another blackout on Friday, December 5, causing another significant interruption to the internet. Numerous cryptocurrency exchanges and dozens of popular websites were severely disrupted by the event.
Users reported websites falling down, including DeFi platforms like Jupiter, Raydium, and Meteora as well as centralized exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken. Platforms like X, Substack, Canva, and even DownDetector were impacted in addition to cryptocurrency services, demonstrating how much the internet depends on Cloudflare’s infrastructure.
Early reports indicate the outage may stem from Cloudflare Dashboard and associated API issues. The company rolled out a fix and is currently monitoring its effectiveness while conducting an internal investigation.
Wu Blockchain, a Web3 news aggregator, noted that “numerous cryptocurrency applications” were temporarily inaccessible, highlighting the cascading effect of Cloudflare’s failure on digital finance ecosystems.
Impact Across Crypto and Web Platforms
The vulnerability of internet infrastructure that depends on a small number of significant content delivery networks is highlighted by this outage. Blockchain tools and exchanges are among the many apps that rely on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Cloudflare.
Coinbase’s Base network and Infura, which supports several blockchain apps, also had disruptions when AWS went down in October. Therefore, the systemic vulnerabilities associated with centralized internet architecture are highlighted by the current Cloudflare incident.
Cybersecurity experts warn that the problem is not isolated to individual organizations. Graeme Stewart from Check Point explained, “News sites, payments, public information pages and community services all froze, not because each organisation failed individually, but because a single layer they rely on stopped responding.”
Moreover, Tribe Payments’ chief security officer Fadl Mantash highlighted the vulnerability of transactions dependent on multiple cloud services. He said, “The infrastructure behind a single transaction relies on a chain of cloud platforms, processors, third-party APIs, authentication tools, and card schemes. When any link in that chain fails, the entire journey can break.”
