On Tuesday, March 18, 2025, the popular Bitcoin payment application Strike experienced a significant service disruption due to a sudden and substantial surge in user traffic. The company's engineering team swiftly implemented corrective measures, fully restoring functionality for its global user base within hours. Strike confirmed that user funds remained secure throughout the incident, which began during peak trading hours in the Americas and affected transaction execution and core app features.
The outage highlights the growing demands on cryptocurrency infrastructure and the critical importance of scalability, especially for platforms facilitating instant Bitcoin and Lightning Network transactions. Strike has initiated a post-mortem analysis to prevent future occurrences, focusing on areas like auto-scaling cloud infrastructure and database optimization.
Separately, the cryptocurrency market has been rattled by a sharp decline in Bitcoin's price, sparking intense debate among analysts. While traditional macroeconomic pressures are a factor, emerging theories suggest a more coordinated catalyst. Blockchain analytics firms tracked unusual large Bitcoin transactions to exchange wallets preceding the downturn, indicating potential coordinated selling activity.
One prominent theory involves potential sovereign wealth fund liquidations, where nations might sell accumulated Bitcoin holdings to stabilize currencies or fund projects. Another focuses on the unwinding of the yen carry trade, where leveraged positions taken by funds borrowing Japanese yen were forced to liquidate Bitcoin amid rising funding costs, creating a feedback loop of selling.
The derivatives market also played a significant role. BlackRock's spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT) saw unprecedented trading volume exceeding $10.7 billion, while options premiums reached around $900 million. Concentrated put option buying and increased short interest suggest cascading forced liquidations accelerated the price decline. Market metrics showed extreme readings, with daily trading volume spiking to over $45 billion and the put/call ratio hitting 1.4.
