On the back of news that Coinbase is launching its own Visa crypto debit card, Wirex decided to roll out its latest platform – Wirex 3.0. Wirex touts itself as the first platform that allows users to buy, sell, and hold a range of cryptocurrencies, as well as spend them in store with its own Visa debit card. But, it has been far from smooth sailing for the plucky startup. In a rush to keep its community happy, version 3.0 went live with a number of huge bugs that forced the app to enter “scheduled maintenance” just hours after being deployed.
Scheduled or Unscheduled Maintenance?
Thousands of people around the globe have been using Wirex happily over the past few years, and many now rely on its Visa debit card as their sole card for purchases. Yet, just hours after version 3.0 was deployed, card transactions were being declined, account top-ups were stuck pending, fiat-crypto conversions were disabled, and crypto withdrawals were vanishing – along with the crypto. A notice on the app said that Wirex had entered into “scheduled maintenance”, but without any notice on the website or its social media channels, things quickly turned ugly. Over on the official Telegram channel, disgruntled users bombarded admins with complaints, threats, and the occasional jovial joke. Admins quickly replied with “We are down in unscheduled maintenance to fix the issue. ETA – 120 minutes. Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience caused.”
Struggling to Keep Up
Around six months ago, Wirex had a much smaller user base and it was the perfect app for quickly buying, selling, and spending cryptocurrencies. However, after massive customer growth, it appears as if Wirex simply can’t handle the amount of active daily users – crashing multiple times each day. As Coinbase, Change, and many others begin to launch their own automatic-swap Visa crypto debit cards, Wirex could start seeing its user base flock elsewhere unless it picks up the ball it continuously seems to be dropping. There are a number of commission-free platforms around that offer a better service and uptime – perhaps it’s time for Wirex customers to look elsewhere.
Many people were left without access to their funds over the weekend, causing many to miss out on ideal buy and sell positions as market buzz took hold. If outages like this continue we could see Wirex’s loyal user base start to dwindle.
