Uphold delayed many withdrawal requests this month, spooking customers and inciting social media criticism against the Ripple-linked company. The exchange blamed a "service disruption at our third-party transaction monitoring partner," declining to name that specific entity. This issue also affected Topper and other companies across the industry. Third-party monitors currently show withdrawals as normal, and the website discloses no current outages. However, not everyone is convinced the problem is over, with claims of a supposed "bank run" circulating on social media despite the official status page showing resolution.
Operational Timeline and Coincheck Overlap
The outage began around November 4, coinciding with a Chainalysis address-screening shutdown announced at 10:30am New York time. By November 5, Uphold reported that about 80% of crypto deposits and withdrawals were processing. On that same day, Japan’s Coincheck suspended transfers due to an external outage. Customers complained on StatusGator about delays ranging from a few hours to four days as recently as November 9. Uphold cited an "uptick on transactions needing review" but reiterated that funds remain safe. Within the last 20 hours, the company admitted certain withdrawals were still delayed. As of 9am New York time on Tuesday, the CPO posted, "The majority of transactions are cleared and I don’t anticipate the massive delays anymore."
Legal History and Recent Restructuring
Uphold faces significant legal baggage alongside these operational issues. In April, New York’s Attorney General secured more than $5 million from the firm for misleading investors about CredEarn. An agreement states users lost over $34 million when Cred collapsed, though Uphold called the characterization "profoundly inaccurate." A separate federal class action settlement totaling $820,000 won court approval in October 2024, covering unauthorized account access dating back to February 2021. The company denies wrongdoing in that case. Operationally, Uphold paused European deposits on July 1 while completing MiCAR licensing. It also cut 17% of its workforce, or approximately 85 people, in July. Finally, the firm announced it is leaving Brazil by November 30, citing authorization rules for crypto providers.
