Coinbase implements fix for delayed HBAR transfers following Hedera upgrade

Coinbase has implemented a fix for delayed sends and receives of Hedera (HBAR) and is monitoring results, according to the Coinbase Status incident. Buys, sells, and fiat withdrawals and deposits remained unaffected throughout the disruption.

Trading inside Coinbase kept running normally while moving HBAR to an external wallet — or receiving it from one — was where users hit delays. In practical terms, an HBAR position could still be bought or sold on the exchange even while Coinbase’s HBAR send-and-receive service was delayed.

Coinbase first acknowledged the disruption at 10:04 p.m. PDT on Aug. 28. Just under two hours later, at 12:01 a.m. PDT on Aug. 29, the incident status moved from “Investigating” to “Identified.” Coinbase posted a fix update at 2:50 p.m. PDT on Aug. 29. As Coinbase wrote on its status page: “We are aware that users may experience delayed sends and receives of Hedera (HBAR). Buys, Sells, and Fiat withdrawals/deposits are not affected. We are investigating this issue and will provide an update shortly. Rest assured, your funds are safe.”

Subsequent status updates filled in the progression. “The issue has been identified and a fix is being implemented,” Coinbase wrote. Then, later: “A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results.”

The timing overlaps with a scheduled Hedera mainnet event. Hedera had planned an upgrade to mainnet version 0.76 for 2:00 a.m. UTC on Aug. 29 and warned that some services could be disrupted during a maintenance window expected to last about 40 minutes, according to FinanceFeeds. At 2:16 a.m. UTC, Hedera confirmed the network had been upgraded to version 0.76.3 and was available.

Coinbase didn’t log the HBAR transfer issue until approximately 5:04 a.m. UTC — three hours after Hedera’s maintenance began. The timestamps establish proximity. They don’t establish that the upgrade caused Coinbase’s delays, and Hedera’s own status information showed the mainnet operational, with mirror-node services and APIs also functioning.

Two node-level conditions were also listed in Hedera’s status data. An IBM-operated node was experiencing a partial outage; a Dell-operated node was under scheduled maintenance from Aug. 27 through Aug. 31. Neither is identified in the available record as the cause of Coinbase’s HBAR transfer problem, and which component of Coinbase’s Hedera integration was affected isn’t specified anywhere in the supplied materials. The specific technical cause has not been publicly disclosed, and the status record does not state when normal transfer processing fully returned.

FinanceFeeds reported HBAR at roughly $0.088 on Aug. 29, with a market capitalization of about $3.8 billion and approximately 43 billion tokens in circulation. Dividing $3.8 billion by 43 billion tokens lands at roughly $0.088 — consistent with the reported price, though both figures came from FinanceFeeds. The exchange supports Hedera for trading and custody, meaning a user could hold an HBAR balance, keep trading it, and still run into delays trying to move it out.

The Aug. 29 incident also lands inside a busy month for Coinbase transfer-related status events. According to FinanceFeeds, on Aug. 14, delayed sends and receives hit Sui and resolved in about an hour. FinanceFeeds also reported that Ethereum transfers saw separate disruptions on Aug. 17, Aug. 20, and Aug. 21; the Aug. 21 event also involved delayed ARBETH receives. A distinct incident running Aug. 22 through Aug. 24 affected some USDC payments over Polygon through Coinbase Payments, FinanceFeeds reported — a different transfer path from HBAR, but still part of the same month’s pattern of reported disruptions across different services.

What Coinbase’s account does establish, to be clear about what the record actually supports: buys, sells, and fiat activity continued unaffected; the issue was identified; a fix was implemented; monitoring is ongoing.

HBAR users with pending transfers should check the incident status at Coinbase Status before assuming a send or receive has completed.