Crypto derivatives exchange Paradex experienced a platform-wide service outage on Monday, January 19, 2026, rendering its trading interface and core infrastructure unavailable. The disruption affected multiple services, including the user interface, cloud and API services, blockchain components, bridge, block explorer, and remote procedure call (RPC) proxy.
The root cause was traced to a failed database maintenance operation. In response, the Paradex team made the significant decision to roll back the state of its Starknet-based appchain to block height 1,604,710, which was the last known correct state before the maintenance began. This action was taken to preserve user funds and account balances, effectively restoring all accounts and positions to their pre-maintenance state. However, any trades, liquidations, or abnormal funding rates that occurred during the downtime were reversed.
As part of the recovery process, Paradex announced it would force-cancel all open orders, with the exception of take-profit and stop-loss (TP/SL) orders. The exchange did not provide an immediate timeline for full service restoration, advising users to monitor its official status page for updates.
The incident sparked significant unrest within the community. Users on social media platform X reported missed trading opportunities and expressed concerns over potential abnormal liquidations during the outage. Some community members called for refunds or compensation, citing a breach of trust. The decision to execute a chain rollback, while rare and often discouraged for mature chains, was pushed through by the team despite moderate resistance, prioritizing a swift restoration of operations.
During the outage, Paradex also issued an official warning against fake support accounts impersonating its team, urging traders to rely only on official communication channels and reminding them that the platform would never ask for private keys.
Paradex operates as a decentralized perpetual futures exchange (perp DEX) and has grown into a significant venue for on-chain derivatives trading. Data from DefiLlama ranks it eighth in 30-day trading volume across the decentralized exchange (DEX) space, with over $37 billion in reported trading activity in the past month. The project has historical ties to the collapsed FTX exchange, having been founded by a team heavily impacted by its downfall.
