Bitcoin Blockchain Business
ByAuthor J.D. SmithPosted on
17
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All of the Federal Reserve’s wire and ACH systems go down

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UPDATED 3:20 PM EST: This article has been updated to reflect that all Federal Reserve Bank Services with the exception of Account Services are now back online. 

Nearly all of the services available through the Federal Reserve’s online portal went down for more than an hour today. 

According to the Federal Reserve Bank Services website, the bank is currently experiencing a disruption in its Check 21, Check Adjustments, FedLine Advantage, FedLine Command, FedLine Direct, and FedLine Web services, which started at 6:18 PM UTC today. Its FedACH, Central Bank, FedCash, Fedwire Funds, Fedwire Securities, and National Settlement services went offline at the same time but were restored within two hours.

In addition, most of the access solutions that the Fed offers — FedLine Advantage, FedLine Command, FedLine Direct, FedLine Web, FedMail — were disrupted and later restored, with only FedLine Advantage offline at the time of publication. The FedMail system, which stayed online through the service disruption, allows the central bank to provide updates on its services to participating organizations.

Washington Post reporter Rachel Leah Siegel reportedly received an alert from the Fed saying its staff were “currently investigating a disruption to multiple services” and would “continue to provide updates as soon as they are available.”

According to Siegel, Jim Strader from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond said:

“A Federal Reserve operational error resulted in disruption of service in several business lines. We are restoring services and are communicating with all Federal Reserve Financial Services customers about the status of operations.”

Set up by the central bank, FedACH handles Social Security benefits, tax refunds, and many payroll direct deposits for federal employees, while Fedwire is a real-time gross settlement funds transfer system between accredited institutions. Some in the crypto space have pointed out the blockchain industry already seemingly has the infrastructure to enable similar payments.

At the time of publication, the system outage doesn’t appear to have had much impact on cryptocurrencies or fiat. Bloomberg’s ICE Dollar Index, which measures the value of the U.S. dollar against six major currencies, stayed above 90 points this afternoon. The price of Bitcoin (BTC) is currently $48,985, having risen more than 7% in the last 24 hours.

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