Poloniex Suffers Attacks Seeing 600% More Active Traders in 2017

Over the past few weeks, traders have been complaining about slow trade executions while using the U.S. based cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex. The trading platform says it has recently been suffering from many severe distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks alongside a surge of mainstream growth.

Also read: Crypto Tales Pt. 1: Odd Stories That Surface in Bitcoin-Land

Poloniex Suffers From Multiple DDoS Attacks Over the Past Few Weeks

Lately across social media platforms and cryptocurrency focused forums, there have been users complaining about trading on the exchange Poloniex. Back in April, as the digital currency Ripple XRP began to show its first signs of a bull run the exchange experienced a lot of customers complaining about downtime and trade executions. One individual states that he believes Poloniex is just overwhelmed by all the cryptocurrency price spikes lately saying;

I think they are just overwhelmed. Lots of new users, new trade volume, lots of additional stress on their systems and on coins that haven’t seen this type of activity before.

Since then Poloniex said the platform has had issues with a lot of DDoS attacks and a massive influx of new traders using the exchange. On April 2 the exchange told its users they had full knowledge of connection issues.

“We are aware and are working as quickly as we can to resolve the connectivity issues,” explained the trading platform. Looking at Twitter, Poloniex details that it had connectivity problems on May 7, 8, 12, 13, and also had a stop-limit issue on May 16.

“We’ve been under continuous DDoS attack which inevitably affects other areas of operations,” Poloniex details on Twitter May 13. “We’re mitigating as fast as we can.”

Poloniex Addresses Concerns in a New Blog Post

On May 16 Poloniex detailed its current position via a blog post citing an unprecedented level of new market entrants and DDoS intrusions.

“Malicious threats to an online global exchange, like Poloniex, can occur at any time of the day, on any day of the year, and from anywhere on the planet,” explains the U.S. cryptocurrency exchange.

In the case of Poloniex, these threats are present every day, often with multiple, unrelenting DDoS attacks directed at several endpoints simultaneously.

Poloniex Captures a 600% Increase of Active Traders and 640% More Transactions

Poloniex also says that the trading platform has seen a significant increase in trading its many markets. “Since January, we’ve seen an increase of more than 600 percent active traders online and regularly process 640 percent more transactions than we did merely four months ago,” Poloniex details.

“In a short period of time, exchanges can see sudden and tremendous swells of new users seeking to create accounts, yet to meet compliance obligations, only so much of this onboarding process can be automated,” the exchange adds.

Additionally, seasoned traders intensify buy and sell activity, and margin positions are rapidly being opened and closed. As trading activity multiplies with an expanding user base, exchange staff and support grow only as fast as human resources can hire.

A Commitment to Scaling Up

Statistics show the exchange has seen a significant amount of volumes over the past four months. According to Coinmarketcap, the trading platform is exchanging roughly 291,917 BTC ($506M) worth of cryptocurrency trades per day. At present, the exchange’s most traded digital asset is Ripple XRP with a $204 million USD 24-hour trade volume. Half a billion dollars worth of daily trades is no small potatoes, and Poloniex says it will continue to be “committed to scaling up.”

What do you think about Poloniex saying there is a significant influx of new cryptocurrency traders this year? Let us know in the comments below.

Images via Shutterstock, and the Poloniex website and Twitter page.

Bitcoin is cool, and you know everyone wants in – even the ones who say they don’t. Show the world how cutting-edge you are with a bitcoin T-shirt, hoodie, bag, key-ring, even a Trezor hardware wallet. Shipping all over the world, quality merchandise and, of course, a payment system that makes people say “wow!”.