Coinbase users have been complaining that Solana transactions are being delayed for hours as network congestion caused by U.S. President Donald Trump’s Jan. 18 memecoin launch has impacted cryptocurrency exchanges.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote in a post on the
“We’ve seen a lot of Solana activity over the past few days, but we didn’t expect this surge,” Armstrong added.
Solana users have been experiencing network issues recently following the launch of the memecoin by President Trump and his wife Melania ahead of the official presidential inauguration on January 20th.
Coinbase CEO on Solana transaction delays. source: Brian Armstrong
Coinbase’s delays appear to be at least partially independent of Solana’s, with some users saying the exchange’s settlement times were hours behind those on the blockchain network. On January 20, one X user described a 15-hour transaction delay on Coinbase.
“Coinbase is expecting 100 minutes to process USDC receipts on Solana,” Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Solana infrastructure provider Helius, said in a January 20 post.
“To be clear, this has nothing to do with the chain,” Mumtaz said, referring to Solana.
“We are aware that some users may be experiencing delays in transmitting and receiving on the Solana network. Buying, selling and fiat deposits/withdrawals are not affected. Our infrastructure team is working to resolve this issue,” a Coinbase representative told Cointelegraph.
Executives say Coinbase’s delays aren’t simply due to Solana. source: Because Mumtaz
surge in activity
Trump’s advisory team launched the official Trump (TRUMP) memecoin on the Solana Network on January 18th and the official Melania (MELANIA) token on the Solana Network on January 19th, ahead of President Trump’s inauguration on January 20th.
With the launch of memecoin, Solana brought significant trading volume, which reportedly caused network congestion.
Moonshot, the platform where Trump instructed his followers to buy memecoins, reported over 200,000 new on-chain users since the token’s launch. Coinbase is the most popular cryptocurrency retail exchange in the United States.
Despite reported congestion errors and some transaction failures, data on Solana’s status page shows that Solana has boasted 100% uptime for the past 90 days and has had no outages since February 6, 2024.
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