Coinbase Customers are Demanding to Be Refunded Over GYEN Glitch

It was only about a couple of weeks ago that Coinbase users saw stablecoin GYEN hit unbelievable heights as it started trading on the platform.

Now outraged customers of Coinbase say the company has locked them out of their accounts after “technical reasons” forced it to halt trading GYEN in November.

Customers around the country told CNBC they can’t get answers from the company while Coinbase says that it continues to work around the clock to restore full trading on the Coinbase retail app,” but refused to comment further.

The Coinbase users have launched an online campaign demanding the cryptocurrency exchange refund their losses after a technical problem led the company to freeze accounts for weeks, potentially locking in large losses for many customers.

Coinbase told customers a glitch in trading of two cryptocurrencies in mid-November was due to “technical reasons.”

The issue occurred in mid-November when Coinbase customers were able to buy GYEN, a stablecoin that is pegged to the value of one Japanese yen. Another coin involved in the mishap was also POWR.

GYEN was listed on Coinbase for the first time on Nov. 10, according to the crypto analysis firm Chainalysis.

It was on November 17th that the coin somehow became untethered to the yen price it was supposed to be targeting. Chainalysis says it leapt to a high of 0.065643, which is about 7.5 times higher than the fiat equivalent investors thought they were getting.

It is unclear how many customers were involved and how many suffered losses.

The company said in an email to some customers obtained by CNBC that “between 15th – 19th November 2021, GYEN on Coinbase experienced unexpected behavior due to unusual market conditions. On 19th November, this was further complicated and for technical reasons, Coinbase disabled trading for GYEN.”

“For customers trading with GYEN up until 19 November, this may have resulted in decimal display issues for transactions (displaying 100x greater than or less than what was actually purchased
or traded based on the exchange rate confirmed at the time), while the wallet balance accurately reflected the amount traded,” the email said.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.