After a cryptocurrency disaster that featured many cryptocurrency holders being overcharged during their transactions, Visa has exonerated Coinbase, a popular platform for cryptocurrency trading, from any wrongdoing regarding the overcharging. The credit card company reported that it wasn’t Coinbase’s fault that certain customers were being overcharged, sometimes by the thousands of dollars, but refused to accept the blame for the fiasco itself.
Testing investor’s patience
It goes without saying that the crypto-disaster hit investors where it hurt; some cryptocurrency holders were charged up to fifty times their original purchase amount, according to reporting by The Next Web, and customers everywhere reported glitches that included reversed transactions and unauthorized withdrawals of their financial assets. The glitch appears to have only impacted transactions that were carried out on Coinbase, one of the most popular cryptocurrency exchanges on the web and follows recent news of yet another surge in Bitcoin’s pricing.
With the world’s most popular cryptocurrency recently closing in on the $12,000 level of valuation, per CNBC, the disaster couldn’t have come at a worse time. Coinbase handles transactions for other, non-Bitcoin cryptocurrencies like Litecoin and Ethereum traded using the QProfit System, but the bulk of trading that occurs on the platform is done with Bitcoin.
While Coinbase had originally shouldered the brunt of the blame for the glitch, it recently altered its position and is now pointing fingers at Visa, claiming the credit card company and other major financial institutions made changes to their digital code that impacted the transactions in question.
“This is related to the recent MCC code change by the card networks and card issuers charging additional fees,” a spokesperson for Coinbase told The Next Web.
The company then took to Twitter, where it assured angry investors that it would be reimbursing those impacted by the glitch, and said it was working with Visa to determine the exact cause of the fiasco. While Visa has yet to publicly accept responsibility for the glitch, Coinbase nonetheless asserts that recent changes made to the merchant category code responsible for overseeing Visa purchases on Coinbase resulted in the massive fees being charged to customers.
The disaster could lead more major financial institutions to ban cryptocurrency purchases facilitated with credit cards, as many major banks did recently, according to Forbes. Bitcoin’s valuation may be soaring sky high once again, but the cryptocurrency community is still beset by a myriad of regulatory and digital hurdles.
