Update on Oct. 3, 1:01 am UTC: This article has been updated to include Bank of America’s comment to Cointelegraph.
Thousands of Bank of America customers reported a network outage that prevented them from accessing their bank accounts or displayed a $0 balance.
Reports of service issues began about 4:26 pm UTC on Oct. 2 and peaked an hour later with almost 18,000 Bank of America customers reporting issues within a 15-minute interval, according to data from real-time network outage platform Downdetector.
Number of Bank of America outage reports over the last 24 hours. Time reported in UTC +10. Source: Downdetector
About 98% of the reports referenced Bank of America’s mobile and online banking apps.
Bank of America hasn’t issued a public statement addressing the issues, though it reportedly told CNN the network outages have “largely been resolved.”
Later, in a statement received at 1:01 am UTC on Oct. 3, the bank told Cointelegraph that the “technology issues have been fully resolved.”
Several comments on Downdetector indicated the issue hadn’t been fixed for everyone.
“Everyone is saying it’s fixed, it’s not!!” a user named Corey wrote.
“Still not fixed been out at least EIGHT hours!” another user, Buff Barnaby, added.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Bank of America customers criticized the bank over the IT glitch; some noted that while they had a $0 balance, their debt remained.
“My money is gone but conveniently my debt is still there. Bank of America sucks,” X user Anchor Baby said.
The latest comments from Downdetector’s Bank of America page. Source: Downdetector
The issues weren’t confined to Bank of America’s mobile app either, according to X user Kerim.
“Went to branch and they are not allowing deposits or withdrawals.”
Other customers reportedly said the ATMs would not show their account balances, but they could still withdraw cash.
While most impacted Bank of America customers responded with anxiety and anger, others remained light-hearted amid the ordeal.
Everyone refreshing their Bank of America account to see if its still $0 pic.twitter.com/wUHR5Q1T7a
— Conald Peterson (@WhyGarth) October 2, 2024
Some Bitcoiners pointed to Bank of America’s failure to show why people should consider self-custodying funds, while others mentioned Bitcoin’s impressive uptime record.
Bitbo’s Bitcoin Uptime tracker showed that Bitcoin hasn’t suffered a network outage since March 2013, when the network was still largely centralized.
Still, the same cannot be said for all blockchains. Solana, Canto, Zilliqa and Linea have each experienced at least one halt this year. Other crypto exchanges like BitForex and Lykke halted withdrawals after being hacked earlier this year.
In another incident, thousands of Americans were paid late last November when the Federal Reserve’s Automated Clearing House — a payment network businesses use to transfer wages into employee bank accounts — suffered a network outage.
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Google Finance data shows that the IT glitch did not impact Bank of America’s (BAC) share price, which traded relatively flat on Oct. 2.
BAC’s share price also withstood $338 million worth of sell orders from Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway between Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, Bloomberg reported.
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