Some Coinbase users found the exchange’s website unreachable on October 14, 2026. The mobile app, meanwhile, kept chugging along as if nothing had happened.
The cause was not a server meltdown or a botched software update. For users in Taiwan, the outage traced back to a courtroom, specifically a block ordered by the New Taipei District Court.
A legal outage, not a technical one
The court action was issued under Taiwan’s Public Officials Election and Recall Act. The order carries the reference number 115年度聲扣字第55號.
Its stated concern was Coinbase’s prediction markets. Those markets included events connected to Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election.
Independent tests confirmed that web connections to coinbase.com were being redirected. Instead of the familiar trading dashboard, visitors landed on a block page noting that the court ruling was being enforced.
Reports started appearing around midday on October 14, Taipei time. Social media users quickly began posting screenshots of the same block notice, captured across different devices and browsers.
The app kept working, and the status page stayed green
The block appears to have targeted the web domain specifically. Access through the Coinbase mobile app reportedly remained unaffected, so users could keep trading without interruption.
Coinbase’s official status page listed both the website and the mobile app as operational on a global basis.
The status page did flag some issues, though none involved Taiwan. It noted delayed asset transfers on certain networks, including Celestia and Osmosis.
Neither Coinbase nor Taiwanese authorities offered an immediate statement clarifying what the block means in the bigger picture.
Taiwan has done this before
Coinbase is not the first platform to land in this particular penalty box. Taiwan has previously used court-ordered blocks against election-related betting and prediction platforms.
Polymarket, the best-known crypto prediction market, is one example of a platform hit with a similar restriction in Taiwan.
For Coinbase, the episode lands as the exchange pushes further into prediction markets through a partnership with Kalshi, specifically related to Taiwan’s upcoming presidential election.
Disclosure: This article was edited by John Chen. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.